Smoke Gets In Your Private Eyes
by miknnik
Summary: No such thing as an easy repo when the Simon brothers handle it.
1. Chapter 1

A.J. Simon eased his beloved Chevy to a stop and parked it away from the other vehicles on the street. He adjusted the rearview mirror and found what he was looking for in its reflection.

"Is that the one?" he asked his brother and investigative partner, Rick, hooking his thumb to point at a Ford F-150 about half a block behind them.

"Yup. This'll be a piece of cake. Shouldn't take more than thirty seconds. Wait here till I start the engine. I'll meet you back at the office. Okay?"

Rick got out of his brother's Bel Air and sauntered nonchalantly to the Ford truck. He casually looked around as if to look for a friend, saw no one else and placed his hand on the door handle. It wasn't even locked! _This is going to be one of the easiest repos ever_, he thought congratulating himself. There would be plenty of time to drive down to Tijuana for the weekend after he and A.J. delivered the truck to the bank that had hired them.

Rick got into the truck and closed the door as quietly as possible. He fished out a car key from the pocket of his windbreaker and inserted it in the ignition—or rather, tried to, but the key wouldn't go in. "Damn!" This was not the first time he had received a wrong key for a repo, but it still made him mad. Now he'd have to hot-wire the truck.

He was trying to locate the positive and negative wires when he sensed someone else's presence.

"Hey, what're you doing?"

Rick almost jumped out of his skin and looked up sharply only to find his brother peering in through the window.

"Don't you ever, EVER, sneak upon me like that again when I'm concentrating," He snapped while keeping his voice as low as possible, but his menacing tone had no effect on his brother.

A.J. simply shrugged and said with a smirk on his lips, "Refresh my memory, will ya? Did you say, 'This shouldn't take more than thirty seconds,' or was it thirty minutes?"

Flustered, Rick banged the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. "The bank gave us a wrong key—again! If you wanna do this, be my guest!"

A.J. shook his head. "Nah, I'll let you handle it. This is your forte. I took advanced calculus, not shop, in high school."

"A lot of good it did," Rick muttered as the engine of the Ford came to life with a roar after he connected the wires.

A.J. trotted back to his Chevy and drove behind the Ford. Rick was still angry with the bank for making his job a little tougher than it needed to be, and with A.J. for giving him some lip while he was doing most of work. In an attempt to calm down, he reached for the cigarette pack in the breast pocket of his shirt. Only then did he remember he had smoked the last cigarette earlier and thrown away the pack.

Now that a smoke was on his mind, he really craved a nicotine fix. With the left hand on the steering wheel, he opened the ashtray. He knew there would be some cigarette butts because he could detect the unmistakable cigarette odor seeped into the carpeting and upholstery. The ashtray was almost full. Hoping to find something, anything, better than discarded cigarette butts, he pulled the truck to the curb and reached for the glove compartment and rifled through the usual junk. And scored! Granted, it wasn't his brand, and the pack was in a sorry state and half empty. No matter. He eagerly shook a cigarette out of the pack, lit it and inhaled the smoke deeply. The first drag made him a little lightheaded, but he started to feel much better after a few more puffs. By the time he made it back to his office, he felt mellow enough to forgive the incompetent bank and his annoying younger brother—well, almost.

A.J. was standing by his Chevy with his arms folded over the chest. As soon as Rick pulled in to a parking space next to the Bel Air, A.J. greeted him with, "What took you so long? You were driving ahead of me."

"I'm a careful driver, so sue me," Rick dismissed his brother's gripe with a shrug. "Careful driver? Ha! Since when?" A.J. shot back with a good dose of insolence. "Anyway, while you were enjoying a leisurely drive on a scenic route, I put in a call to Golden West. We're to meet with Bergman in twenty minutes, so don't bother getting out of the truck."

Without waiting for his brother to reply, A.J. got into his car and started the engine. _With a brother like mine, who wants to quit smoking_, thought Rick and reached for the pack for another cigarette.

_**S&S S&S**_

The meeting with Harry Bergman, a loan officer at Golden West Bank of California, lasted about thirty, forty minutes. He was awfully nice for a banker, offering refreshments to the Simons although they had turned down the offer repeatedly. He made a big ceremony out of presenting them a check for their service.

"Sheesh, I thought that guy would never let us leave," Rick grumbled as he and A.J. walked out of the bank.

"He was just being nice, that's all. It may be hard for you to understand, but some people have manners."

"He's got some nerve, that's what he has. He tried to talk me into opening a bank account with them."

The brothers got into the Bel Air.

"That sure was a waste of time, wasn't it? With the credit history like yours, there's no way they're going to let you open a bank account with Golden West. Or, anywhere else for that matter." A.J. smiled smugly as he drove out of the bank parking lot.

"Speaking of banking, why don't we cash that check before the bank closes? I could use some walk-around money for the weekend," said Rick eyeing the check from Bergman hungrily.

"Sure, we can go to the bank, but this check will go straight to our agency's account. We have bills to pay, and you have to wait another week before you get your next paycheck. What do you do with all your money anyway? You're getting to be too old to live paycheck to paycheck, Rick. How many times did I tell you…?"

A.J. was in the lecture mode again. Maybe it was his way to retaliate for all the punches and kicks and headlocks and other fraternal abuses he'd received from his big brother when they had been still kids, but he sure enjoyed boring Rick with his speeches on prudent living and money management, among other subjects. Not that it did any good—Rick could tune him out without trying too hard. He started to fiddle with the knob on the car radio.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"I wanna listen to something else."

"Switch it back to my station! I was listening to Charlie Parker. This is my car, and I'm driving, so I get to choose the station we listen to. If you want to change it, you should ask me first…"

_Blah, blah, blah_…

_**S&S S&S**_

It was getting close to noon by the time Rick and A.J. left their bank and were heading back to the office. Rick tapped on A.J.'s shoulder to get his attention.

"Hey, drop me off here. I'm gonna get somethin' to eat."

A.J. pulled up to the curb as requested.

"You want anything?"

"Depends. What are you having for lunch?"

"Oh, maybe a hotdog or two, or tacos, milkshake…"

"Uh, no thank you. I'll get something else."

"Suit yourself." Rick shrugged and started to walk off.

"I'll meet you back at the office," A.J. shouted at his brother's receding figure.

A.J. drove a couple of more blocks and parked his car in his regular parking spot. Rick often called him Mr. Predictable, and he knew he was such a creature of habit, but he couldn't help it. The daily routine gave him a semblance of order and peace of mind, which was sorely needed in his line of work, especially when one had to work with a guy like Rick, who was Mr. Unpredictable.

It was Thursday afternoon. Saturday being a Valentine's Day, some people were taking Friday off to enjoy a romantic three-day weekend and itching to leave already including Rick. Especially Rick. He'd been talking all morning almost nonstop about Tracy or Stacy, and the much-anticipated trip to Mexico with her. Most likely another blonde, A.J. surmised. He knew Rick's type well—a looker in a certain way, well-endowed, with a vacuous stare that might inspire a few more dumb blonde jokes. Rick's taste in women, as well as other worldly pleasures, had changed very little since his adolescence. If he kept it up, the transition from his adolescent antics to midlife crisis would be a smooth one.

A.J. climbed a few steps to the front porch of his office with the keys in his hand. He still had some paperwork to do before the closing time. He was about to put his hand on the doorknob when he realized that the office door was not only unlocked but also slightly ajar. Almost as a reflex, his hand went to his gun in the holster. He quietly pushed the door in just a few inches to take a look inside. Rick's desk was dead ahead, and there was a man standing in front of it with his back to the door and A.J. He was slightly bending over as if to look for something on the desk. A.J. stepped inside the office in one fluid motion with the gun in his hand and closed the door behind him.

"Don't move. I have a gun," he calmly announced.

The intruder straightened his back with a start but otherwise adhered to the warning.

"Now, hands up. And turn around. Slowly."

The man obliged. He was in his late thirties or early forties, about five-ten, medium build with non-descriptive features. He looked quite harmless like a regular businessman.

"Look, Mr. Simon… You are Mr. Simon, aren't you?"

"What are you doing in my office?" A.J. ignored the man's question.

"Mr. Simon, this is a terrible misunderstanding. I came here to request your service and found the door open, so I thought you were in."

It was plausible, and nothing seemed to be out of place in the office, but it was still too early to let the guard down.

"I need some proof. Take out your wallet—slowly, very slowly. Let me see your ID," said A.J. without lowering his gun.

The intruder took out his wallet and was about to hand it to A.J. when the office door burst open, and in came Rick with an armload of food.

"Look what I got, A.J…"

The sudden noise and movement right behind him startled and distracted A.J. for a fraction of a second, but only a moment of distraction was all the mystery man needed to strike. His kick was crisp and precise, landing squarely on A.J.'s wrist. The gun flew out of his hand and hit the wall. The intruder was deceptively nimble—before A.J. could react to the lightning-quick attack, he pushed him into Rick' arms. The two brothers tumbled out of their office falling like a couple of domino tiles, A.J. on top of Rick. Rick's lunch rained on and around them. A.J. scrambled back on his feet and ran into the office, but the intruder was gone. He rushed to the kitchen at the back and found the backdoor standing open.

"Damn!" He cursed under his breath.

Rick was just getting up and looked utterly befuddled.

"What the hell just happened?" He asked A.J., who had returned from the back of the office.

"The more pertinent question would be, 'Whom have you crossed lately?'" A.J. took his frustration out on his brother.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind. Did you get a good look at the guy?" asked A.J. picking pieces of sauerkraut off his jacket.

"No. Have you seen him before?" asked Rick shaking his hat to get rid of potato chips crumbs.

A.J. shook his head. "No. When I got here, the door was unlocked, and he was standing in front of your desk."

"Was he doing anything suspicious?"

"Nothing that I could see," said A.J., then he remembered. "It seemed he was looking at or looking for something on your desk."

The brothers exchanged a certain look and raised their eyebrows. They knew exactly what to do next. They delved into the piles of junk on Rick's desk. Personal correspondence, bills, statements, reading materials…

"Rick?"

"Yeah?"

"Do me a favor, will you?"

"What?"

"If you don't wanna embarrass our clients, keep your skin magazine collection anywhere but here, all right?" A.J. picked up one of the magazines as Exhibit A. Rick let out a hyena laugh, but neither of them stopped searching while talking.

"Ah-ha!" Rick exclaimed lifting his hand from under the desk. He showed a small, round listening device to his brother, who was now unscrewing the cover of the phone's mouthpiece.

"Ah-ha!" A.J. echoed Rick's triumphant cry, showing the same device embedded inside the phone.

They spent next half an hour or so debugging, but a thorough sweep of the entire office produced no other bugs. A.J. sat at his desk and leaned back in his chair after they called it quits.

"Let me ask you again, Rick—have you stepped on someone's toes lately?"

"Why are you trying to pin this one on me?"

"Whoever he was, the guy bugged your desk, not mine."

"Doesn't mean a thing—maybe he didn't have enough time to do yours."

A.J. only shrugged to concede.

"So, what do you think? Some unhappy customer?" conjectured Rick.

"Not very likely. Of course, we can't please everyone, but we only had cases of divorce, repo, missing person and serving summons and subpoenas the last few months. Where do you think ordinary teachers and accountants and deadbeats get their hands on sophisticated listening devices? Spy Kits R Us?"

"Have you heard from the parole board about the recent releases of the ex-cons we put away?"

A.J. shook his head 'no.'

"So, where does that leave us?" Rick's question was probably rhetorical, but A.J. put his two cents in anyway.

"In the dark?"


	2. Chapter 2

A.J. pulled his car into the garage and shut off the engine. He was glad to be home, and there was a good reason for it—he was going to have his place all to himself for a few nights. Rick had been raring to go since this morning and headed for south of the border before A.J. locked up the office. Marlowe, Rick's big, good-for-nothing mutt, was at the vet's for observation because he had ingested something nasty and gotten food poisoning. A.J. was looking forward to a date with a couple of rare books he had found at a secondhand bookstore. The only fly in the ointment was the break-in at the office in the afternoon. He and Rick had gone over old case files for hours but hadn't been able to figure out who and why. Rick, preoccupied with his weekend getaway, was dismissive about the incident, saying no harm had been done; A.J. wasn't so sure.

He was still mulling over the break-in when he realized the entrance door was unlocked. _It's like déjà vu all over again_, he thought humorlessly. For the second time in one day, he reached for his gun in the belt holster. He pushed open the door slowly and waited several seconds before he stuck his head in for a quick peek inside. He counted to three, then, with the gun drawn, he noiselessly slipped into the kitchen. He remained still listening intently to determine where the rustling, stealthy noises were coming from.

_The living room_, he was sure of it.

Treading softly but swiftly like a cat, he approached closer to the intruder whose silhouette was now visible in the dim. Cocking his gun, he delivered the standard warming as firmly and forcefully as possible. "Hold it right there! Don't make any sudden move. Raise your hands slowly where I can see them."

Gripping his .357 in both hands, he rounded the corner to face the intruder directly.

"Drop your gun."

A sepulchral voice came from right behind him. He felt a cold burst of adrenaline in the pit of his stomach and a gun barrel pressed hard on his back. The trap had been set beautifully, just the way he and Rick would have done. With deliberate slowness, he lowered his hands and dropped the gun onto the floor.

"Now, kick it toward me," ordered the unseen second intruder. His basso profundo, not unlike Gottlob Frick's, sent chills down A.J.'s spine for all the wrong reasons. He kicked the gun backward as ordered. A few seconds later, the lights came on.

His normally tidy living room had been turned upside down. Books and magazines everywhere. The vinyl records of vintage jazz and classical music lay scattered all over, some broken, he sadly noted. He groaned inwardly when he saw how big the man in front of him was—he was built like a Sherman tank. The muscleman made him feel as if he were an undersized fourteen-year-old.

"You're not Richard Simon," the Muscle spoke for the first time. Curiously, it was a statement rather than a question. A.J. kept his mouth shut though his mind was racing to assess the situation he was in. _Rick, Rick, Rick. What have you done this time?_

"Where is he?"

A.J. shrugged to indicate 'no idea.' The Muscle clearly didn't like what he saw and grabbed a handful of A.J.'s shirtfront with such force he almost lifted him up, forcing him to stand on his toes. The Muscle showed A.J. his clenched fist to intimidate him further—it worked. The fist was enormous, about the size of a basketball.

"We know he lives here," the Muscle hissed. "We're gonna find your brother one way or another. It's up to you if you wanna do it hard way." His angry face came a few inches closer to A.J.'s.

"He's out of town for the weekend," A.J. managed to say as fast as he could. His brother lived on his boat parked in the backyard, but he kept that part to himself because he didn't want to antagonize the Muscle and his pal citing technicalities.

"Where-did-he-go?" The Muscle punctuated each word by shaking his hapless prey.

"Maybe somewhere in Mexico, I don't know," A.J. tried to hedge, but, seeing the Muscle's eyes narrow, he hastily continued. "Hey, I'm telling you the truth! I'm not my brother's keeper!"

The look on the Muscle's face convinced A.J. that he was about to have his lights punched out, and he averted his face wincing and bracing for the impact.

Just then the Bass ordered the Muscle, "Let go of him," which apparently displeased the latter. Grunting in frustration, the Muscle angrily shoved A.J. sending him flying towards the bookshelves. When he collided with the furniture, more records cascaded down on his head from the shelves above. Nevertheless, he was glad to be out of the reach of the big oaf. He looked to his left and saw the Bass the first time. He was a black man just as big as the Muscle, but with an intelligent face. Then A.J. saw his eyes, his dead eyes devoid of any emotions, which scared him even more than all of The Muscle.

"Get up," the Bass told A.J. "On your feet and empty your pockets."

A.J. gingerly pulled himself up without taking his eyes off the Bass. He first removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it up to show it to the Bass.

"Toss it to my partner."

The Muscle examined the contents of the wallet thoroughly. In addition, A.J. surrendered his keys, loose change and a business card case to his captors.

"That's all I have on me," he announced hoping that would satisfy them. "I don't know what you're looking for, but…"

"Shut up," the Bass cut him off. "Search him," he ordered the Muscle.

Rough was too mild a term to describe the Muscle's pat-down. A.J. knew he'd be in pain, covered with bruises next morning. He had come out of some fights in much better condition. After he finished manhandling A.J., the Muscle went out to check the Bel Air.

Perched on the armrest of the sofa watching A.J. watch him, the Bass was a blank canvas—his face revealed nothing; he almost looked bored. A.J., with his hands clasped behind the back of his head, was on his knees and becoming increasingly unnerved by the stretching silence and the uncertainty. When the Bass finally spoke again, he almost jumped with a start.

"Have you been inside the Ford pickup that you and your brother delivered to Golden West this morning?"

_The repo! But it was just this morning._ "No."

"Did your brother give you anything this morning after the repo?"

_Trouble, aggravation, grief and misery for starters._ "No."

"To the best of your knowledge, did he take anything from the pickup?"

"No! My brother and I are professionals. We never steal from our clients!"

The Muscle, looking meaner and angrier, returned from outside, shook his head to show his partner the search had turned up nothing.

Seeing the Bass rise to his full length made A.J.'s hairs on the back of his neck go up. _Is this the beginning of the end?_

"Tell your brother we'll be back for him."

A.J. exhaled his breath he didn't know he had been holding.

"And tell him there's no use hiding," the Muscle chimed in.

"Wouldn't it be easier if you left me your business card just in case?" A.J. was feeling a lot better, good enough to give them a bit of sass.

"If you wish."

A.J. was caught off guard to hear the Bass' improbable response and jerked his head up in surprise—or, tried to. In the corner of his eye, he saw a huge fist, then stars, then nothing.

_**S&S S&S**_

When he came to, A.J. found himself lying on the floor and wondered how he had ended up flat on his back. As he blankly stared at the ceiling, he began to recall fragments of the unpleasant encounter with two unknown assailants. Or, was that a dream? No, a pounding headache, blurry vision and the chaos throughout the house told him otherwise. Despite the discomfort and the mess around him, he counted himself lucky. If those two pros had wanted to cause a real serious damage, he would have been all over the floor waiting to be scraped off with a spatula.

His body tensed when the phone started to ring. He hesitated for a few seconds before picking up the receiver. "Hello…" he uttered ever so cautiously.

"Yo! It's me."

He felt relieved to hear Rick's voice, but the sense of relief was quickly replaced with a stab of fear.

"Ri… Where are you? I thought you were heading south." He chose his words carefully so as not to give any specifics over the phone, which might be tapped.

"Well, I forgot to bring something. I'm heading back for the border as soon as I pick it up. So, don't worry—I'm not gonna ruin your boring weekend plan."

"What is it that you forgot to take with you?" A.J. tried to maintain the conversation light.

"Oh, nothing that you have to worry your pretty head, little brother."

A.J. could almost see a smirk on Rick's face. He knew that Rick knew he hated being called pretty, or pretty boy. Every once in a while, Rick called him that in order to rile him up—it was his diversion tactic to change the subject he'd rather avoid. A.J. was too preoccupied to take the bait this time though.

"Hey, listen, Ricardo. Since you're still in town, wanna grab a bite to eat before you take off again?"

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line then he heard Rick drawl, "Sure, sounds good. Got any particular place in mind?"

"Giorgio's Pizzeria? Around…" A. J. glanced at his wristwatch, "…seven…ish?"

"Fine by me. See you there, Andre."

A.J. heard a soft click, and Rick was gone.

_**S&S S&S**_

At 6:45, Rick walked into a bar in East Village. He looked around to see if he could find anything familiar. He knew the management had changed hands a few times since his last visit, but he was able to recognize some old framed pictures by the mirror behind the bar counter. This place used to be one of his favorite watering holes and had been part of A.J.'s rite of passage. Many a time, Rick had brought his then-underage brother here to give him some pointers on anything alcoholic. On such occasions, they had always told their mother, Cecilia, that they were going to Giorgio's for some pizza. The ruse had gone on undetected for several months before they'd been busted one night when both of them had gotten plastered and made a rackety entrance into their home instead of sneaking in at two in the morning. _A.J. was so drunk—and had a terrible hangover as a consequence—he didn't realize he was being grounded until a couple of days later_, recalled Rick, chuckling.

Rick was still skipping down the memory lane when a group of college kids entered the bar. Among this young bunch was A.J. He blended in quite well, but Rick easily spotted him in spite of a black stocking cap and a pair of sunglasses he'd put on to conceal some physical traits. A moment or two later, A.J. found him at the counter and pointed his chin at an empty corner booth. Rick nodded, and they walked toward the booth unhurriedly. A waitress came over and took their orders almost immediately. A beer for Rick, a club soda for A.J. No hard liquor to dull their senses tonight.

"Did anyone follow you here?" Making sure that no one was around, A.J. asked Rick first.

"No. You?"

A.J. shook his head. "Uh-uh. Not any more. I think I saw someone tailing me when I left home, but I ditched him. Just in case, I went to Tory's first, went out the back door and took a cab here."

"So, tell me. What the hell's going on?"

"I was hoping you could provide the answer," A.J.'s reply was cryptic.

"What? I didn't come all the way here to play Twenty Questions, so stop talking in riddles, A.J." As always, Rick wanted straight answers. After a beat, A.J. resumed talking.

"I had two more surprise visitors. This time they came calling at my place. Funny thing is, they were looking for you, but not just you. They wanted something you took."

Rick was now completely baffled. "What? What did I take? When? Where? From who? I don't know what you're talking about!"

"The uninvited guests were under the impression that you removed something from the truck we just repossessed." From behind the dark sunglasses, A.J. watched Rick in silence for a moment. "Did you, Rick?"

"'Course not!" Rick was getting hot under the collar.

"Rick, there's no use getting upset. You have to calm down to think clearly. I want you to… Just… Just retrace what you did this morning, okay?"

_He sounds like a goddamn shrink_. Rick glared at his brother and jammed his hands in the pockets of his jacket. As his fingers curled around the brand new cigarette pack he had just purchased in the bar, his eyes widened, his body froze. A.J. didn't miss the sudden change in his brother's demeanor.

"What? What is it, Rick?"

Rick slowly pulled his hand out of the pocket and stared at the cigarette pack in the hand as if it were an alien creature.

"Is that what you took? A pack of cigarettes?" A.J. was incredulous.

"No, not this one."

"But you stole one lousy pack of cigarettes?" A.J. was losing his composure.

"I didn't mean to steal it. It wasn't my brand."

"Oh, yeah. That sure negates the intent of theft, doesn't it?"

Rick let his brother's sardonic remark pass now that he'd have to face the fact that he was the cause of the trouble they seemed to be in.

"It was just force of habit—after I took a smoke out, I put the pack in my breast pocket without thinking. I didn't realize I still had it until after we delivered the truck to the bank."

"So, where is it? Do you have it with you?"

_What the hell did I do with it?_ Rick drew a blank—he closed his eyes to concentrate. A.J. was becoming more anxious with each passing second.

"I chucked it," Rick remembered at long last.

"WHAT? Chucked it where?" A.J.'s voice jumped a couple of octaves higher in panic.

"In the back of my truck."

A.J.'s shoulders sagged as some, if not all, of the tension left his body. He couldn't think of any other time when he had been grateful that his brother was a slob.

Rick scooted out of the seat. "Come on, let's go," he urged his brother, but A.J. shook his head.

"No, not yet. You just go on ahead and find the pack, but we need a plan before we leave this place."

"A plan? For what?"

"Think about it, Rick. The repo was just this morning. By noon, someone tried to bug our office. I don't know who or how many people are involved in…in whatever it is, but they know who we are, where we work and live, and I'm sure they know what cars we drive. They also know our physical descriptions, and that you were the last person to drive that Ford…" A.J.'s voice trailed off.

"Maybe the guy who paid us a visit at work sent a couple of his lackeys to scare us," Rick suggested.

"Possible. But the man at the office looked like a white-collar type. The men that showed up at my place were definitely goons."

Slowly but surely, Rick began to understand the nature of this clandestine meeting. For the first time after his arrival at the bar, he scrutinized A.J.'s face for several seconds then reached down and removed his sunglasses. He was sporting one hell of a shiner. His left eye was almost swollen shut. Rick's jaw tightened as he gritted his teeth. He put his hand on his brother's shoulder and gave him a squeeze—hard.

"I'm sorry, A.J."

A.J. looked up at Rick with one good eye and whispered, "Hey, it's okay. Could have been worse if it'd been you they found."

Rick realized then that A. J. was afraid—afraid for that idiot brother of his.


	3. Chapter 3

A.J. was pleasantly surprised when Rick's buddy, Carlos, showed up at the bar in a rather inconspicuous Volvo station wagon, not a hideous jalopy he'd half expected. Rick had retrieved the pack of cigarettes and the duffle bag he'd packed for the weekend from his power wagon and asked Carlos to take and stash his pickup in one of his hideouts. The plan they had devised was to get a loaner from Carlos and keep moving for a few days while figuring out what was going on and who was behind it. They had no intention of becoming a couple of sitting ducks. They were dying to see what was in the crumpled pack of cigarettes, but that had to wait until they were alone at a secure location. Carlos gave them an address in the University Heights neighborhood where the brothers could crash for a night or two.

Rick and A.J. piled into the Volvo and hit the road eagerly. About five minutes into the trip, they decided it was safe to inspect the cigarette pack. With one hand on the steering wheel, Rick tossed it to his brother. A.J. counted the remaining cigarettes in the pack—there were three left.

"Are these just regular cigarettes? What do you think?" asked A.J. carefully removing the first one.

"Worse than my brand."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

Wrinkling his nose, A.J. took a close look at the cigarette for a moment or two and shoved it under Rick's nose.

"Does this smell funny to you?"

"Hey, get it out of my face!" Rick yelled swatting A.J.'s hand away.

"Well, does it?"

"No. Just terrible."

"Then why'd you smoke it?"

"When you gotta smoke, you gotta smoke."

A.J. shook his head as if to say, _Oh, the things I put up with_. The second cigarette was no different. As he pulled out the last one in the pack, his heart began to beat a little faster with anticipation. It was wrapped with a small piece of paper sealed with clear adhesive tape.

"Rick, I got something!" A.J. shouted excitedly as he broke the seal and unfolded the paper.

"What is it? Some kinda message?" asked Rick giving a sideway glance to the passenger side.

"I think so." A.J. squinted trying to read a couple of short lines.

"A.J."

"Hmm…?"

"Take off your shades, for Pete's sake!"

"Oh, yeah…" A.J. had forgotten all about the sunglasses. Without them, he had no problem reading the message. The elation he'd felt initially was short-lived though; he furrowed his brow as he read it aloud, "Too sick so parkin port D. Lure on twos won for Teepee."

Rick frowned. "What the… It doesn't make any sense. Sounds like an excuse note."

A.J. nodded in agreement. "A very poor one at that. Like the kind you would have forged when you were still in school."

"It must be some kinda code."

"Well, obviously, but what's it for?"

"And who's trying to pass this message to whom…?"

They rode in silence for a while lost in their own thoughts.

Rick slowed the station wagon to a stop and shifted the gear to P. A glance at the house in front of them made A.J.'s jaw drop.

"Are you sure this is the right address?"

Checking the address scribbled on his palm, Rick nodded, "Yeah. Don't you like it?"

The house was a tad too small to be called mansion but certainly expansive and had beautifully manicured gardens.

"How did Carlos find a place like this?"

"Don't underestimate my buddy, A.J. He has connections."

Rick proceeded to one of the rose beds by the front door and picked up one of the rocks from the ground.

"Artificial?"

"Yeah, what else is new?" Rick took out a key from the not-so-secret compartment inside the fake rock.

A.J. walked up to the front door waiting for Rick to unlock it, but his brother was heading for a different direction.

"Rick? What're you doing?"

"Oh, checking on the wiring."

The answer didn't bode well with A.J. "Because…?"

"We don't wanna trip the alarm, do we?"

The whole setup was too good to be true, A.J. had known right from the start, but he still couldn't help whining. "We're committing a B&E?"

"Beggars can't be choosy." Rick sounded he was quite comfortable with the rooming arrangement. "'Sides, we're not exactly breaking in—we got a house key."

"Oh, please, be sure to mention that to our arresting officers!"

Despite his loud protest, A.J. knew their options for accommodations were severely compromised. They could not use their credit card to check into a hotel or motel if they didn't want to leave the paper trail. Between them, they didn't have enough cash to rent a decent room, and they wouldn't be able to go near their bank for the next several days at least because any bank transaction might alert the unknown individuals who were after them. Lying low in the skid row was even worse—there were eyes and ears everywhere. Given a chance, the denizens in the underbelly of the society would turn you in for a nickel. And the last thing you wanted to do was to show up at the residence of your family member or friend unless you didn't mind putting them in harm's way. Resigned, A.J. trudged into the house following behind his brother.

Rick turned on his flashlight before A.J. closed the door behind him.

"Rick? Why'd you pack a flashlight for a trip to…?" A.J. broke off in the middle of the sentence. "No. Wait. Don't answer that. I don't wanna know..." There was only so much one could take in one day.

_**S&S S&S**_

"Okay, Mom. I'll give you a call when we get home... I'm sorry I can't make it this Sunday, but I'm looking forward to our next dinner together, and so is Rick. I'm really sorry I woke you up in the middle of the night, Mom… Love you too. Bye-bye." A.J. put the phone receiver back on its cradle and sighed. He hated lying to his mother; even a little white lie, like being out of town on a new assignment so as not to worry her, nagged his conscience.

"You weren't serious, right?" Rick looked up at his brother from the couch that he had staked claim to.

"About what?"

"You really like having dinner at Mom's?"

"Sure. Why not?"

"What about her boyfriend-of-the-month?"

"Not so much, but she's not seeing anyone right now, if you care to know."

"And her meatloaf?"

A.J. opened his mouth to answer the question but changed his mind.

"Look, it's not the food she serves that matters. We're family—we should enjoy each other's company."

"O-ooh, like we're doing right now."

Rick smiled his 'gotcha' smile when his brother chose to take the fifth.

A.J. sat down heavily on the overstuffed armchair.

"Okay, the break's over. Let's get back to work, shall we?"

"No, let's not." Rick objected tiredly. "Come on, A.J. We've gone over this gibberish a hundred times and got nothing to show for. It's getting late. Why don't we get a good night's sleep, get a crack at it with fresh eyes first thing in the morning?"

A.J. seemed somewhat tempted by Rick's idea. He had a dark circle under the right eye, his face drawn. The bruise around the left eye was several shades darker than before. It reminded Rick of the homicide victim's postmortem lividity he'd seen in some autopsy photos, and he quickly pushed away the unpleasant mental image.

"Just look at you—you look like hell."

"Thanks for reminding me."

"Oh, it's not that. What I mean is, you're half a step away from crash and burn."

A.J.'s resolve wavered for a brief moment, but in the end, he slowly and stubbornly shook his head.

"No, you go ahead and get some rest. I wanna stay up a little longer. Okay?"

Rick let out a deep sigh and decided to give it a rest. He had known since they had been young boys that, behind the wholesome boy-scout façade, the Simon family's stubborn streak ran deep within his brother as surely as it did in him.

"Okay, if that's what you want."

A.J. nodded wearily.

"Just give me a holler if you find anything, alright?"

"Okay."

Rick spent next twenty minutes or so pretending to be asleep on the couch hoping that A.J. would follow suit, but after a while, he surrendered to fatigue and let sleep take over his mind and body.

It had been a long day, long and particularly hard day, and A.J. desperately needed R&R, but he doggedly hung on. He had gone over every single word in the message found in the pack of cigarettes so many times, he could recite the whole thing forward and backward. With the eyes closed, the chin resting on the palm of his hand, he started to mumble once again, "Too…Sick…So…"

He fell silent as if he had fallen asleep. Then his eyes flew open.

"Too-Sick-So, Too-Sick-So," breathlessly he repeated with mounting excitement. "Rick! Rick!"

A.J. darted to the sofa where Rick lay asleep and shook him wildly.

"Huh… WHAT?"

"The code! The code! I think I got it!"

Rick stared vacantly at his brother while his sleep-addled left-brain sluggishly decoded the latest linguistic input.

"You break the code?" Still groggy and half asleep, Rick sounded like he was on a seven-second delay.

"Yes! Yes, I did! Or, at least the first part of it! It's so simple! It wasn't a substitution code at all. Why didn't I see it sooner…"

A.J. was talking so fast, all the words seemed to run together as one. Overwhelmed by all that yammering, Rick slapped his hand over his brother's mouth.

"Damn it, A.J.! Slow down! SLOW. DOWN. _Comprendes_?"

All wired and wide-eyed, A.J. nodded enthusiastically. As soon as Rick's hand came off his mouth, however, he started babbling again fast and furious.

"Too-Sick-So, Too-Sick-So…"

"Aaagh!" Rick was ready to shut him up one more time, but A.J. caught his hand just before it landed back on his face.

"No, no, no! Listen to me, Rick! Just listen to my voice!"

He began reciting the same three words over and over like a fervent prayer. Rick's eyelids started to droop, but then he, too, heard it. When his eyes snapped open, the last vestige of sleep was gone. A.J. finally quit chattering; he was grinning like a mad man.

"Two-Six-O," whispered Rick in awe.

"Two-Six-O," repeated A.J. nodding vigorously.

"It can't be an area code, or prefix…" Rick was thinking aloud now.

"…because the next word is 'parkin.'" A.J. finished his brother's thought and sentence.

"260 Park… It's a street address!" Excitement crept into Rick's voice as well.

Once they realized that a syllable or consonant of some word in the code was detached from its origin and combined with its neighboring word, the rest of the puzzle fell into place almost by itself.

"260 Park. Import Dealer on Tues—that's Tuesday. One forty P—as in p.m." Rick, who was now wide awake and fully alert, couldn't conceal his amazement when he finished deciphering the code.

"By George, we've got it!" A.J. shouted with joy, emulating Rex Harrison as best as he could.

_**S&S S&S**_

The euphoria the Simon brothers had experienced didn't last long. A.J. reclaimed his post in the armchair, threw his head back and stared into space.

"So, we have a certain address, date and time, but we still haven't figured out the who and why part."

"Well, we could drive over to 260 Park Avenue and case the joint…"

"No!"

A.J.'s reaction was almost violent. He sat up straight in the armchair, ready to tackle and physically restrain Rick if necessary, his nails digging deeply into the armrests of the chair like talons.

"You're not thinking this through, Rick. Someone is after you. We don't know exactly who, but ordinary people or the police don't send out goons to look for a person of interest. Everything points to one thing—organized crime."

"Yeah, maybe. But we can't stay cooped up in a hiding place if we want to work on this case."

"What's the matter with you? Haven't you been listening? You're a wanted man. Not by the police, but by some criminals who don't mind hurting innocent people. Somebody may be trying to draw a bead on you! Why can't you get that through your thick skull?"

A.J. was getting worked up, panting like Marlowe on a hot summer day.

"A.J., you better cool it. You're fallin' apart."

"Damn it, Rick! Don't patronize me!"

Rick bit his tongue; he didn't want to agitate his brother any more than this by arguing when he was being so uncharacteristically irrational and belligerent. A.J. was coming unglued right in front of his eyes. He got up from the couch and strode across the family room. He crouched down in front of the armchair, his face upturned to look straight into his brother's eyes.

"Patronize you? Hey, I don't even know what that means."

Rick tried to defuse the tension with some self-deprecating humor to no avail. A.J. just kept scowling at him like he hadn't heard a word he'd said.

"All I know is, you're too exhausted to think straight, but you're too scared to go to sleep because you think the boogeyman might carry me away while you're asleep."

The expression on A.J.'s face told him that he had hit the nail right on the head.

"It ain't gonna happen. No way, no how. You should know better than that. We're safe here for now. Come on, there's something wrong with the picture when Rick Simon becomes the voice of reason for his college-educated brother."

A.J. no longer looked piqued, just worn out.

"Get some sleep, A.J.," Rick's voice dropped to a mere whisper.

"I'm too tired to fall asleep." A.J. sounded like a petulant five-year-old refusing to go to bed past his bedtime.

"How can you tell? You haven't tried it yet. Now, close your eyes."

"It's not gonna work."

"Just humor me, alright? Close your eyes, A.J."

A.J. finally gave in. He leaned back in the chair with a thump and closed his weary eyes.

"You'd better not leave this house tonight, Rick."

"Quit worrying, for crying out loud. I promise you, I'll be here when you wake up in the morning. Okay?"

A.J. felt Rick's assuring hand on his shoulder. When Rick leaned closer, the stink of cigarette smoke that had permeated in his clothes hit A.J.'s nostrils, but he found it oddly comforting. As he drifted off, he thought of his father, who had passed away so long ago, and his favorite pipe for the first time in years. Just before he fell asleep, he thought he smelled—_vanilla_—the sweet scent he had always associated with his father's pipe smoking wafting in the air.

A.J. fought hard to ward off sleep as long as he could, but he didn't last five minutes. His breathing became deep and regular under Rick's watch. His knit brow became smooth once again in his sleep, and he no longer looked troubled. Contrarily, Rick felt rage starting to build up inside as he watched his brother doze off. He wanted to hunt down the men who had beaten up and scared the daylights out of his brother so that he'd be able to break every bone in their bodies, but most of all, he was furious with himself for dragging A.J. into the mess he'd created. This was not the first time he'd done so, for sure, and, yes, from time to time, he himself felt like smacking his kid brother around, but this was different. It was so insanely absurd that A.J. had to go through this emotional wringer, in addition to receiving a painful message on his behalf, just over a pack of cigarettes. _A blunder this stupid and spectacular is oh-so typically Rick Simon_—he could almost hear A.J. ranting, but he didn't need his brother to point that out.

Rick started pacing. Unlike his brother, he didn't like analyzing and dwelling on his emotions and what-ifs and might-have-beens. He wanted some action, but then again, careful planning wasn't his strong suit either. He knew there was no way he could go back to sleep, and that he couldn't possibly stay put twiddling his thumbs for the next several hours. Pacing didn't do him any good, so he dug out the black bag from the duffle bag and checked its contents, burglar's tools. _Don't leave home without it—_a random thought crossed his mind. Next, he inspected and cleaned his .44 Magnum just to stay busy. All the while, he knew—he needed fresh air and wanted to feel the pavement under his feet.

_**S&S S&S**_

Half an hour later, he was ready to leave. He had changed into dark clothes and donned A.J.'s black stocking cap. He walked quietly toward the front door and reached for the doorknob.

"Rick…"

Rick stopped dead in his tracks and held his breath. He remained still for several seconds dreading to hear A.J. speak again, but the house had returned to its previous quietude. He turned around cautiously to check on his brother. A.J. was still fast asleep under the blanket Rick had found in the linen closet upstairs. He was a talker awake or asleep—of all people, Rick should know. His face slack in his sleep, A.J. still looked a bit like the little towheaded kid Rick used to share his bedroom with. He watched his brother sleep a while longer. When he was sure that A.J. wouldn't wake anytime soon, he opened the door and slipped into the night to look for some answers and, perhaps, redemption.


	4. Chapter 4

The first sense A.J. regained was hearing. He was not quite awake yet, but he heard the sounds around him in his sleep: birds chirping; cars driving by; and someone snoring. At that moment, his eyes fluttered open, and he found himself lying on the couch that he could not recognize at first. Sitting at his feet was Rick, who had undoubtedly fallen asleep while watching over him. He tried to stay awake, but like in a bad case of flu, his body ached all over, and he was in and out of the state of consciousness.

Something awakened Rick suddenly from shallow sleep to full wakefulness. He soon realized it was his brother's restlessness that he'd felt. When he checked on his wristwatch, he cussed softly. It was already past eight.

"A.J.? A.J.? Better get up!" Rick gripped A.J.'s shoulder and gave him a few shakes, but he just moaned and didn't even open his eyes.

"It's getting late. We should get going, A.J." Rick shook his brother more vigorously. This time, A.J. tried to cover his face with the blanket, but Rick didn't let him.

"You're not waiting for Prince Charming to kiss you good morning, are you, Princess?"

A.J. rolled over on his stomach and mumbled something into the pillow.

"Come on, A.J. Wakey-wakey!"

Rick shook him a few more times. A.J.'s hand came up to push him away, but he took hold of his brother's arm and pulled him up in a kneeling position.

"Attaboy! Now, come on! Work with me. You ready to fight the evil and injustice?"

"No."

"Want some breakfast?"

"No."

"Wanna get off the couch?"

"No."

"So, how're you feelin' this morning?" asked Rick in a touch more somber tone.

A.J. gave it careful consideration before answering.

"Like Wile E. Coyote at the bottom of the canyon—with an anvil on his head."

He looked the part too, but Rick didn't let it on.

A.J. appeared disoriented and looked around in sleep-deprived daze.

"Do you remember where we are?" asked Rick.

A nod.

"Do you remember why we're here?"

Another nod. A.J. also remembered falling asleep in the armchair. He was also quite certain that he hadn't walked over to the couch in his sleep carrying a pillow and a blanket.

"Well, that's good enough for me. Okay, up you go!"

Rick put his brother's arm around his neck and helped him get off the couch.

"Now, let's put some coffee in your belly."

"I don't want any."

"It's not the matter of want, A.J. I need you to be awake and alert to help me solve this case. Like they say, two heads are better than one."

"In our case, it's more like one and a half on a good day, I'm afraid."

Although he understood exactly what A.J. had implied, Rick couldn't help but laugh because he was just glad to have his cheeky brother and partner back.

_**S&S S&S**_

When he was on the second cup of coffee, A.J. started to feel better. Not much, but he welcomed any improvement. He and Rick were sitting at the breakfast nook in the kitchen of the Fergusons, who, according to Carlos, were on a month-long safari trip in South Africa. Thankfully, Rick let him nurse his cup of coffee in peace while he was stuffing his face with pancakes drowned in syrup and butter. A.J. kept his head low so he wouldn't have to see Rick eat—it made him queasy.

"You know, I was thinking," A.J. seemed to be speaking to the table.

"Mm-Hmm…"

"The owner of the Ford truck may be a good starting point. I mean, he could be the one who was trying to pass the secret message to someone. Do you think you could ask your buddy at DMV to look into the personal records?"

Rick said something that sounded like 'bum,' or 'bun.'

"What did you say?" A.J. looked up but quickly lowered his gaze.

Rick took a swig of coffee to wash down the pancakes.

"I said, 'it's done.' And I don't think the owner of the truck's got anything to do with this case."

"What makes you think that?"

"He died a little over three months ago."

"Oh…" Surprised, A.J. finally looked his brother in the eye. "No wonder he was behind the payment."

"I did some digging. He moved here from, uh, one of Dakotas, I can't remember which, only nine months ago. His brother and ex live out of state. I guess they forgot about the car loan after the funeral."

"My, my, my. You've been a busy beaver, haven't you, Rick?" said A.J. with a look on his face that could pass for renewed respect for his older brother.

"The guy was a horticulturist with no criminal history, no tie to this community, and he wasn't exactly rolling in the dough. But for the sake of argument, let's say he wrote the message before he died. It says Tuesday but no specific date. How come it means so much to so many people all of a sudden three months after his death?"

"So, you're saying he's a dead-end? No pun intended."

"I'd say it's a safe bet."

"So, the next on the list would be…"

"Someone who had access to his truck or left the message or all of the above."

"Golden West had access, of course. And Bergman knows you drove the pickup to the bank. Well, how about a black bag job tonight?"

Rick grinned. "That's taken care of as well. You see…"

A.J. suddenly sat up in his chair, eyes wide. "You son of a… You sneaked out last night!" He screamed at Rick.

"How… Whoa, wait a minute…"

"Don't even bother denying. You…we never ask anyone to do our black bag job. Never!"

Though he remained silent, the look on Rick's face eloquently said, _busted!_

"You lying scumbag! You said you wouldn't leave this place last night! You promised!"

"I said no such thing. I said I'd be here when you woke up in the morning, and I was, wasn't I?"

The brothers glowered at each other across the table.

"For someone without a law degree, you have all the makings of a shyster."

To Rick's relief, his brother sounded a little more reasonable and forgiving this morning.

"I had to do something while I was up. And like I said before, we can't hide here forever shaking in our boots if we want to work on this case."

Sighing, A.J. said, "Well, I guess what's done is done, but I don't want you anywhere near the import dealer on Park for now. Okay?"

"Uh… Okay..." Rick's reply was less than emphatic or assuring.

A.J. stared at Rick in disbelief then slowly buried his head in both hands. "Oh, God. No. Tell me you didn't!"

"Hey, I really didn't go inside, I swear!"

"What did you do?"

"I just drove by the place." Rick admitted sheepishly.

"How many times?"

"Twice—on my way out and coming back here. I didn't stop or slow down or anything, all right? By the way, it's a tobacco importer and dealer called Trans-Global Trading."

A.J. could only give Rick a dirty look as he was momentarily at a loss for words.

"Okay, you wanna kill me? Fine. Take a number and get in the line," offered Rick.

"I'll take a rain-check on that, thank you. Right now, we have a more pressing business to take care of," said A.J. through the clenched teeth. "Anyway, what did you find at Golden West?"

"Not a whole lot. All the paperwork was in order. As a matter of fact, everything in the file cabinet was legit."

"What about outside the file cabinet?"

"Ah, I was getting to that," Rick cracked a little smile. "I went through Bergman's desk drawers and daily calendar, and guess what I found."

A.J. didn't respond, so, Rick moved on.

"He wrote down a phone number on the calendar yesterday. I don't know if it was before or after our meeting, and there was no name attached to it. So, I dialed the same number, and do you know who it belongs to?" Rick paused for a dramatic effect. "Your local FBI branch."

"FBI?" A.J. didn't sound angry anymore, and Rick detected a trace of intrigue in his voice.

"That might explain the guy at the office, don't you think?" asked Rick.

"He might be a Fed, sure, but even the FBI couldn't have executed a warrant for wiretapping so fast unless someone in the bureau had predicted we'd steal the message for some reason, which doesn't make any sense." A.J. took a breath before continuing. "There is something rotten in the state of Denmark, Rick."

"California, you mean."

A.J. couldn't help rolling his eyes. Rick had always been very literal.

"Don't you see, Rick? If some FBI agents suspect we're in collusion with an organized crime syndicate, why don't they just pick us up and demand the message we found in the cigarette pack? And don't forget the two men who paid me a visit last night—they're definitely not from the FBI."

Rick reassessed the situation for a few moments staring into space.

"You're right, A.J. This case's started to smell. And my nose tells me the Feds are probably in the middle of a con here."

"A con? You mean, a sting operation?"

"Uh-huh. The way I figure, the Feds are in a covert operation for God-knows-what, but the crooks know or at least suspect they're being investigated, and they're both trying to outwit each other…"

"And along came a clueless private eye disturbing the equilibrium between them, and now both sides want to know if we're working for the other side."

"Anyway, the code must be a rendezvous message…"

"But is it for the Feds, or for the thugs?"

The brothers briefly fell into a comfortable silence as they continued to ponder someone else's case they seemed to have stumbled into.

"Well, got any idea what to do next?" asked Rick.

"Thanks for asking me first before you do anything this time," A.J. still sounded a little sore at Rick. "Well, we just can't show up at the FBI office with the coded message. I mean, there must be a good reason why they didn't take us in for interrogation in the first place. And if we're involved in their sting operation, the most staff in the office probably don't have clearance to have access to or knowledge of the investigation anyway."

Rick took a quick glance at his watch.

"You know, A.J., it's always nice to have you as the sounding board."

A.J. narrowed his eyes and regarded Rick suspiciously. An unforced compliment from his brother was usually not a good sign. Moreover, Rick's smile looked phony.

"All right, Rick. Let's have it. What else do you have up your sleeve?"

"What? Why do you think I got something?"

"Don't you?" asked A.J. probingly.

"Umm…" Rick fidgeted under his brother's unwavering stare. "All right, I got a couple of surprises for you."

"Surprises? I HATE surprises, especially the ones coming from you!" A.J. had a sinking feeling but couldn't tell if it was nausea from the concussion he'd suffered, or dread for the impending doom.

Rick kept smiling to reassure his brother. "Relax. These are nice surprises."  
"I'll be the judge of that," snapped A.J.

"Just hear me out, okay? What would you say if I told you we got enough changes of clothes to last us a week? Huh?"

"How did you manage to get them?"

"Compliments of Mr. Escobar, of course. We have street clothes, suits, outfits for undercover work, you name it, all loaded in the back of the station wagon for our convenience."

"Carlos? I hope you checked them out for fleas."

Rick continued to smile that phony smile of his, and A.J. was sure the next surprise was going to be a doozy.

"You said you got a couple of surprises—what's the second one?"

"I guarantee you, you're gonna love this one."

"I doubt it. And quit stalling. Get to the point, Rick."

"All right, fine. We're going to have a date with a beautiful young lady at ten this morning."

"WHAT?" A.J. had been bracing himself for one of those wacky schemes Rick was known to come up with from time to time, but this one came out of nowhere and bushwhacked him. "We may be risking life and limb to get out there and investigate this case, and all you can think of is satisfying your libido?"

"Hey, have a little faith in your brother, will ya? It's not what you think—we're going to see Janet."

"Janet?" A.J became visibly upset. "What the hell were you thinking, Rick? We can't involve anyone in a risky case like this one, especially someone so close to us."

"Too late to call it off. For your information, she's the one who requested we meet. And I took all the precautions and made indirect contacts through Carlos using pay phones, all right? Look, Carlos can bring us stuff, but we need someone who can help us on the investigative side. She has brains and resources. It's kinda hard to work on a case while laying low, you know."

A.J. closed his eyes overwhelmed by all the information Rick had been firing at him.

"How in the world did you get her to agree to see us?"

Rick mumbled something.

"What? Speak up, Rick. I can't hear you."

"'Cause I hinted that you're in trouble!" Rick yelled in defiance.

"Excuse me? _I'M_ in trouble?"

"What do you think she would've said if I'd told her I was in trouble?"

A.J. had to admit Rick had a point there, but he always hated when his brother was right.


	5. Chapter 5

When Rick and A.J. arrived at the designated meeting place, Janet's car was out on the driveway, and the garage door was open although Rick hadn't instructed her to do so. Smart girl.

"We're meeting with Janet at Myron's home?" A.J. sounded anxious.

"Yeah, but don't worry about him. He's out of town for a few days. Family emergency."

Rick pulled the station wagon into the garage, and before he killed the engine, Janet walked in from the inside and closed the garage door.

Rick got out of the car to greet her, "Hi, gorgeous. Thanks…"

Janet walked right past him and went straight to the passenger side where A.J. was standing.

"…for your concern," Rick finished though he seemed to be talking to no one at that point.

"A.J., are you…?" Janet gasped when she saw A.J.'s face. "Oh, my God! What happened to you?"

"Hey, I'm all right, Janet. You know what they say about an eye injury—it usually looks worse than it really is." A.J. smiled ruefully.

She started fussing over him and practically dragged him inside the house, leaving Rick standing alone in the garage.

"Can I come in too?" Rick's sarcastic question fell on deaf ears.

Once she calmed down, Janet demanded information. Rick and A.J. had agreed that it would be safer for her to not know the details, but she expertly coaxed out bits and pieces of information by skillfully asking right questions. There was no doubt in the brothers' minds that she would make a fine lawyer someday.

"So, while repossessing a truck, you two found this secret message." Janet recapped the Simon brothers' story tapping her legal pad with a pen.

"Yeah, that's right," affirmed A.J., who was sitting next to her at the kitchen table.

"It's not like you to take someone else's personal item without a just cause, especially when you don't know what and who it's for."

"Well, we didn't know the message was in our possession at first."

"You didn't? How could that be? Was it stuck on the bottom of your shoe or something? How could you not know?"

A.J. took a quick glance at Rick across the table and saw that his brother was not about to provide the information voluntarily, so he reluctantly replied revealing as little as possible. "Because it was hidden."

"Hidden where?" Janet was as tenacious and single-minded as a Bloodhound tracking the scent of a criminal on the lam. Cornered in a tight spot, A.J. had no other choice but to answer honestly. "In a pack of cigarettes."

"A pack of cigarettes? But you don't smoke, A.J."

A.J. did not respond, but by then, Janet had already connected the dots.

"You took it, didn't you, Rick?" She sounded like a prosecutor questioning her defendant on the witness stand.

Rick looked like a schoolboy who had been caught red-handed in the middle of a prank.

"So, you're the one who's in trouble." Her tone turned more accusatory.

"Hey, it was an honest mistake. I didn't realize I still had it on me when I left the truck."

"You lied to me. Just give me one good reason why I should help you. You're in trouble because you were careless and irresponsible."

Rick glanced at his brother with pleading eyes.

"Look, Janet. He wasn't lying—he just didn't tell you the whole truth. Rick's in a pickle, for sure, and so am I. We're a package deal. Besides which, we all know in our hearts that he didn't swipe the cigarettes intentionally." A.J. hoped to God he was convincing enough to persuade Janet though his words sounded hollow to his own ears.

"We're desperate and really need your help. There's no one else to turn to."

Janet was still giving Rick the evil eye.

"Oh, please, Janet. Please, please, pretty please?" A.J. turned up his boyish charm a few notches and flashed a disarming, ingenuous smile, which worked like magic on a big chunk of the female population just as effectively as a puppy taking wobbly steps.

_Only a puppy would never come between you and a dream girl you're dying to go out with_, Rick thought idly as A.J. pleaded and begged on his behalf. _Maybe I was onto something when I insisted Mom send the baby A.J. back to the hospital and get me a puppy instead after she brought my baby brother home for the first time._

On the other hand, A.J. was a valuable tool when dealing with nubile women. As smart as she was, Janet was not entirely immune to his power of gentle persuasion. Rick gave her five seconds. _One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three_…

"All right, I'll do it, but I intend to collect on this one. Big time." Janet sighed and finally caved in.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew you'd come through for us!"

A.J. leaned over and gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"Now, here are a couple of things we'd like you to do…"

_**S&S S&S**_

"Hello, Mr. Bergman? I'm Jackie Fullerton of M.D. Fowler Corporation. Richard and Andrew Simon gave me your name and phone number as a reference… Oh, this is our standard vetting procedure for hiring contractors. Would you be kind enough to answer a few questions…?"

Janet was smooth as silk, and one could hear a smile in her voice. As she cheerfully chatted away with Harry Bergman, she really was smiling, but her wide smile vanished as soon as she hung up the phone. When she turned to face Rick and A.J., her countenance had grown serious.

"What kind of problem are you two dealing with?" She sounded worried.

"What did Bergman say?" asked Rick.

"That an FBI agent showed up while you were at the bank."

The brothers' reaction was tepid at best.

"You know the FBI is involved?"

"We know the bureau and Bergman made a contact at one point, but we didn't know an agent showed up during our meeting at the bank," replied A.J.

"I bet Bergman was asked by the Fed to keep us in the office as long as he could. Did he tell you that?" asked Rick.

"Yes, as a matter of fact. How did you know?"

"You remember his secretary interrupting our meeting and Bergman stepping out of his office for a few minutes?" Rick asked A.J.

"After he returned, he started offering refreshments and was overly courteous," said A.J. nodding. "I assume he was stalling for the FBI agents so they could search the truck and my car."

"For what?" Janet no longer sounded like a prosecutor—she was just a concerned friend.

"At this point, it's only speculation, but we may have stepped in the middle of a sting operation. And the message we found seems to be the focal point."

"You mean you two are being targeted by the FBI and the mobsters?" Janet stared at A.J.'s face and shuddered.

"Like I said, we're only speculating." A.J. tried to downplay the whole situation.

"But just to be on the safe side, we'll keep in touch with you through Carlos from now on till this is all over," said Rick. "So, stay on the same drill—when the phone stops ringing after two rings, go to the nearest pay phone and call Carlos. If you have any urgent message, call him anytime. All right?"

"And please don't forget to check on Trans-Global Trading on Park." A.J. reminded Janet. "Dig deep and find out the owner, affiliates, subsidiaries, finances, the usual and more if possible."

As she scribbled a few more lines on the legal pad, Janet asked without looking up, "Why don't you stay here for a couple of nights? My father won't be back from the East Coast for several days."

Rick laughed a humorless laugh.

"I'm serious, guys. He wouldn't mind." _He wouldn't mind what he doesn't know_, she mentally corrected herself.

"Like hell he wouldn't. I know what he calls us behind our backs."

_Oh no, you don't, not entirely_, Janet felt like telling Rick. Some of the words her father used to describe the Simon brothers, Rick in particular, were unprintable in newspapers. Her personal favorite was Lady and the Tramp, but she had never said so to the boys so as not to bruise their ego, A.J.'s in particular.

"Look, we appreciate your offer, Janet, but it's best that you don't know where we are and what we're up to," said A.J. "Just in case…"

"Oh, one more thing," Rick raised his index finger to attract Janet's attention. "Did Bergman tell you the name of the FBI agent by any chance?"

"Yes. Yes, he did." Janet picked up her notebook to look for the name. "Anthony De Luca. Bergman later looked up the phone number of the FBI in the phone book and checked him out to be sure. The bureau confirmed De Luca's credentials."

_Thus, the phone number on Bergman's daily calendar_, the brothers reached the same conclusion almost simultaneously.

A.J. noticed Janet was glancing the wall clock surreptitiously.

"You have to go back to your office, don't you, Janet? I'm sorry, we didn't mean to keep you here this long," he apologized. He got out of his chair and helped her get up.

"We should be going too," said Rick rising from the chair.

"I won't leave the office until 5:30. Call me if you find or need anything, okay? And please be careful."

Janet threw her arms around A.J.'s neck and hugged him tightly. After several seconds, she reluctantly let go of him. Rick was standing by his brother with open arms, expecting a hug from her. She picked up the legal pad and hit him with it on the arm.

"Hey, what was that for?" Rick protested.

"Don't ever lie to me again! And if you get into trouble next time, leave A.J. out of it!"

Rick saw A.J. cover his mouth to hide a gleeful smile, and, for a fraction of a second, he felt like punching him to wipe that smirk off his face. _Mom really should've given me a puppy instead of a little brother. _

Janet returned to her father's office leaving Rick and A.J. behind. Peerless Detectives that Myron Fowler ran was a thriving private investigation agency staffed with many operatives and administrative employees. Janet was used to running background checks and other investigative researches for him, but Rick and A.J. wanted to play it close to their vests for her safety.

Rick called Julius instead to ask for another favor. What the brothers were looking for was personal information on Anthony De Luca. Julius, who was one of the contacts at DMV, narrowed the search within the San Diego Metro area and came up with five Anthony De Lucas.

Rick and A.J. eliminated three individuals right away—two of them were too young, eighteen and twenty-one, and the third was too old at seventy-two. Which meant the man who had shown up at Harry Bergman's office could be Anthony P. De Luca, age forty-one, who lived in the Linda Vista neighborhood, or Anthony M. De Luca, forty-four, in Point Loma Heights.

Rick found the white pages in the kitchen and looked under De Luca. He and A.J. assumed that an FBI agent would not want to have a listed number, and they were right. Unfortunately, this process could not eliminate either one of the remaining two—the only Anthony De Luca found in the phone book was the seventy-two-year-old.

"Which one do you want to try first?" A.J. asked his brother.

"Well, Point Loma is closer," replied Rick. "Maybe he's at work at this hour."

"His wife could be at home if he's married."

"If that's the case, we can always wing it."

Rick's devil-may-care grin made A.J. a little nervous.

"We certainly can. That is, we, as in you and I…"

Rick smiled secretively—it was so easy to push his little brother's buttons.


	6. Chapter 6

On their way to the De Luca residence, the Simon brothers spent more time reviewing the latest information.

"So, it's safe to assume Bergman is not a pawn in this scheme, wouldn't you say?" asked A.J.

"Yeah, I would." Rick agreed. "You know, I'm not the only one who really screwed up here. What kind of idiot would plant a top-secret message in a car that's slated for a repo? And why did he pick that Ford truck to hide the message in the first place?"

"There's another thing that's really peculiar. It appears an FBI informant planted the message since De Luca and quite possibly some other FBI agents showed up at the bank to collect it. But by yesterday evening, the salt and pepper duo that showed up at my place not only had all our personal information but also knew about the missing message. How did they manage to get their hands on presumably the classified information?"

"So, the bureau has a mole problem." Rick sounded amused, almost gloating.

"Or, the other way around."

"Curiouser and curiouser."

Knowing Rick, A.J. wasn't sure if he was quoting Lewis Carroll or had forgotten how to speak good English like little Alice.

Anthony M. De Luca's home was modest but neatly maintained in a nice residential area. By looking at the size of the house, Rick and A.J. guessed he was single, or, married with no children, or an empty nester.

Rick parked the Volvo about a block up from De Luca's. He replaced his trademark cowboy hat with a Padres cap before getting out of the station wagon. A.J. was wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. As they stepped out of the car, they sized up each other. Rick thought his brother looked like a whitebread kid who had wandered into a wrong neighborhood and been beaten up; A.J. could only hope that the residents of this nice middle-class neighborhood would not call the police when they saw Rick loitering.

As they had planned, Rick walked ahead with A.J. trailing about half a block behind him. When he reached at the front door of De Luca's, Rick knocked on the door and strained to hear any sign of someone inside. All was quiet—no footsteps, no TV or radio, no flushing of the toilet. He turned around and gave A.J. an almost imperceptible nod.

A.J. looked about to make sure that no one else was on the block, then quickly went to the back of the house. He slipped on a pair of gloves and tried the kitchen door first. It was locked, but it was an easy lock to pick, and the door had no deadbolt on. When he gained access to the kitchen, he went straight to the front door and tapped it softly to let his brother know he was in before he began a fishing expedition.

As soon as he heard the rapping noise, Rick left his post and casually strolled down to the sidewalk. He stood by De Luca's mailbox and took out a pack of cigarettes. He kept an eye out while pretending to be a guy on a cigarette break during a walk. Several cars went by, but there was little foot traffic. He figured kids were in school and most adults were at work. He was about to finish his smoke when a jogger in his late fifties or early sixties came up the block. The old man was out of shape and huffing and puffing as he waddled past him, but he stopped after taking ten, fifteen paces. First he bent over, the hands on the knees, to catch his breath then turned around.

"Hi there. Are you a friend of Tony's?"

_Oh, great. Just what I needed_, Rick cursed his unlucky star as he slapped on a pleasant smile on his face. "Yes, sir. Well, in a sense." He recalled De Luca was a decade or so older than he. "My brother, Johnny, went to school with him back home and asked me to look 'im up while I'm visitin' this fair city." He spoke with a southern accent.

"Back home? You mean, you're from New York?" Judging by the tone of his voice, the man might as well have said, "Are you kidding me?"

"Our family moved from Galveston to New York around the time Johnny started college." Rick lied effortlessly without missing a beat. Sometimes what he'd learned in his misspent youth paid off. Either that, or he was a gifted liar like his brother would say.

"I thought Tony graduated from Brown."

"Yes, he did, like my brother."

Rick had no idea where Brown University was located, but he could tell it was obviously not in New York. He realized he might be painting himself into a corner by answering questions and tried to turn the tables on the old man. "You seem to know Tony very well, sir. You live around here?"

"Yeah, about three blocks down from here. He and I go to the same gym."

"Well, good for you, sir. I really should work out more myself," flattered Rick. "I wanted to surprise Tony, but it looks like he's still at work. Maybe I'll pay him a visit at his workplace."

"Do you know where he works?" The old man seemed a bit surprised.

"Don't you?" Rick's radar picked up something.

"All I know is he's a government employee. He's always been vague about his work."

_Bingo!_ "I believe he works for the federal government. I'll just drive over to the federal building and catch him when he comes out for lunch or somethin'."

Rick could hardly wait to tell A.J. what he'd learned.

When he stepped outside the De Luca residence through the kitchen door, A.J. heard two male voices. He instantly recognized Rick's; the other one sounded older and raspy like a smoker's. He walked quietly to the nearby bushes and hid behind them to eavesdrop on the conversation. It turned out they were just shooting the breeze. A.J. hazarded a peek to see what they were up to. Rick and a rotund man in his sixties were smoking and chitchatting like a couple of old friends.

A.J. had to wait for another five, ten minutes before the old man left. Rick stood alone for a minute or two finishing his smoke, and finally turned around and saw his brother hiding behind the bushes. He gave A.J. a signal and started walking back to the station wagon. A.J. scampered out of the yard and followed Rick.

"Who was that guy you were talking to?" asked A.J. as he got into the Volvo.

"Oh, some fella who lives in this neighborhood. He told me De Luca works for the government and has two kids who live with his ex. What did YOU find?"

"Well, according to the last year's tax return, he is a federal government employee, still paying alimony and child support to his ex-wife. He doesn't seem to be on the take unless he has a Swiss or some offshore account stashed away somewhere. And if he's crooked, he's a very organized one, almost to the point of obsessive-compulsive."

_It takes one to know one_, thought Rick disparagingly. "Did you find his pictures?"

A.J. produced a couple of photographs that he'd taken from a photo album. One was older, colors somewhat fading, and showed a tall man with dark hair, a woman with mousy brown hair, a girl about ten and a boy about eight—obviously a family photo from the happier time. De Luca looked older, heavier, grayer and stern in the other picture. The DMV record pegged him at six-two, one-eighty. He apparently hadn't updated the DMV stats for some years.

"He looks like our guy. Why don't we postpone our trip to Linda Vista and go straight to the federal building?" Rick suggested.

"And see if De Luca would be engaged in, shall we say, extracurricular activities after hours?" A.J. seemed to be on the same page.

The brothers knew this might be another false lead, but it was the only one they got thus far.


	7. Chapter 7

Finding a parking space near the federal building was always tough, but this time, Rick and A.J. lucked out. They found a perfect spot where they could easily observe the front entrance and the underground parking lot entrance/exit.

A.J. took the first shift of this stakeout while Rick rested in the back seat to catch up with sleep since he had hardly slept the night before. A.J. slid down the seat to make himself less visible and kept a close watch through binoculars.

On the radio, a singer of a bygone era was crooning to a curvaceous, vivacious, home-wrecking _signorina_, asking for a long kiss before breaking her heart with a _ciao_.

_O, mia bella signorina_

_baciami ancor_

_Dammi, dammi un bacio, _

_un lungo bacio_

_E ciao, ciao, ciao, amor!_

Rick had never studied Italian, but because he spoke fairly decent Spanish, he got the gist of the lyrics. It got him thinking on the missed opportunity with Trixie. He knew it wouldn't be him saying good-bye, and that he would definitely not be getting a parting kiss, not even a little peck, from her either after standing her up on a Valentine's Day, which was fast approaching. He sighed as he closed his eyes.

The next thing he knew, he was back in his power wagon with Trixie by his side. He was driving down a long, sandy beach somewhere under the clear night skies. When he parked his truck, there was no one else around them. The moon was up, and the countless stars illuminated the black dome above. The ocean was calm, and the waves glistened reflecting the starlight. Trixie's alluring emerald eyes sparkled in the dark. Her moist lips were slightly apart anticipating, no, begging for a passionate kiss. As he leaned over to fulfill her wish, the darnedest thing happened; out of the sensual, full, red lips of Trixie's came his brother's decidedly unsexy voice. "Rick! Hey, wake up, Rick!"

"Aaaaagh!" Rick jerked awake screaming in the back of the station wagon.

"Jesus, Rick. Will you keep your voice down? We're in the middle of a stakeout here. Remember?"

"I was about to get as lucky as I'd ever get this weekend just before you woke me up, so whatever you have to say better be good." Rick growled.

"Will you please forget about Tracy or Stacy…"

"Trixie!"

"…and shift your focus back to our investigation? I just spotted the guy who broke into our office."

"Oh…" That was a pretty good reason to wake up for. "Is he in or out?"

"Out driving a four-door sedan with a government plate."

"Another Fed?" Trixie was already the furthest thing from Rick's mind by then. "Did you get the license number? Make and model?"

A.J. looked somewhat offended. "What do you think I am—an amateur?"

He showed his notebook to his brother.

"So, if we could take a look at the log-in sheet for the government vehicle use…" Rick started to form an idea.

"…we'd be able to find the agent's name." A.J. finished it for him.

"Do you know what we need for this job?" Rick asked with a crooked smile and a twinkle in his eye.

A.J. started whistling a few bars of a melody Rick had never heard before. It sounded like a funky circus tune.

"What's that?"

A.J. smiled back at Rick mischievously. "Entry March of the Boyars."

"BOY-er!"

"Whatever."

_**S&S S&S **_

The clerk behind the chain-link partition saw two men coming into the federal building from the basement parking lot through the double door down the corridor. One of them was tall, lanky and had on a three-piece suit. The other one was wearing a gaudy shirt and a gaudier jacket and had several gold chains around the neck. His wrists were cuffed behind his back. The suit, undoubtedly a federal agent, gave the scoundrel a little push on the back. The clerk could not make out what the Punk had said, but it was obvious he was mouthing off. In response, the Fed slapped him on the back of his head with an open hand. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. The man in custody drove his shoulder into the Fed's midriff sending him on his keister then took off as quick as a jackrabbit.

"Stop him! Anyone, grab that guy!" the Fed yelled while still sliding on his rear on the slippery marble floor.

The clerk ran out of the cage, but the Punk had already run past his post and was nearing the end of the corridor. Luckily, with the wrists restrained behind his back, he couldn't negotiate a ninety-degree turn at full throttle. He lost his balance, took a spill and started sliding on his stomach. That was when the clerk threw himself, all two hundred fifty pounds of him, onto the Punk on the floor to prevent him from skidding any farther. The crushing weight knocked the wind out of him, but he soon started to struggle, trying to buck the clerk off his back and screaming something unintelligible. Everything was over in mere seconds. The Fed took his own sweet time to catch up with them.

"Hey, thanks. I owe you one," the Fed told the clerk limping towards the two men on the floor. He extended his arm to help the clerk get up. By then, the Punk seemed to have given up and lay still. The Fed unceremoniously picked him up by the scruff of the neck and the belt. The mirror sunglasses the Punk had had on were now dangling precariously from one ear revealing one ugly black eye.

"What are the big boys doing with a lightweight like this one?" the clerk asked the Fed. "Believe it or not, this small fry wants to be a star witness in a federal case. As we speak, the prosecutor is coming over to negotiate a deal," the Fed showed his disgust and contempt in his growl.

"Ah…" The clerk bobbed his head a couple of times knowingly. "Immunity for his testimony, that sort of deal?"

"Exactly," the Fed glowered at the Punk, who was grinning mockingly although he was still a little unsteady on his feet leaning against the wall for support.

Without any warning, the Fed drove his elbow in the Punk's abdomen and smiled sweetly when he doubled over in pain.

"Now, we're even."

The clerk, walking tall after assisting the federal agent, returned to his cage and noticed one of the clipboards was hanging crooked on its hook. He carefully straightened the clipboard for the use of official vehicles sign-in sheet. As he turned around and looked out the cage, he saw the Fed getting in one of the elevators with the Punk and waved with a smile, "Have a great day, Mr…"

"Boyer, Ernie Boyer." The Fed smiled back with a nod.

As soon as the elevator door closed, A.J. tore into Rick. "Why did you elbow me? It was totally uncalled for!"

"It just happened—I was really into my character, like De Niro."

"De Niro, my…foot!"

A.J.'s steadfast refusal—or inability—to utter vulgarities never ceased to amuse Rick. Even a couple of old ladies on their mother's bowling team were more fluent in that particular set of the English vocabulary than his brother.

"It was bad enough to be tackled by a three-hundred-pound man."

"Oh, come on. He wasn't that big."

"I bet you'd be singing a different tune if you had a guy the size of Alaska sitting on your back. Anyway, did you find what we were looking for?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Well, who is he?"

"Arne DeGroot, FBI."

"FBI? Well, well, well, what a surprise. Okay, so the question is, is he an undercover…"

"Or, is he dirty?"

The elevator bell dinged as they reached the first floor. When the door started to slide open, Rick squeezed his brother's arm.

Right on cue, A.J. began yelling, "Hey, get your hands offa me. I know my rights!"

In front of them were about half a dozen people waiting to get into the elevator. Inevitably, all eyes were upon A.J., who was handcuffed, disheveled and had a black eye to boot.

"Simmer down, son. Now, let's get you all cleaned up before your counselor gets here, all right?" Rick nudged A.J. to take a step forward. "Excuse us."

The people outside parted like the Red Sea, wanting no part of the riffraff.

Rick pushed A.J. into the men's room down the hallway. There was a man at one of the urinals, so they had to keep up their charade a while longer.

"If you want to use the head, I'll have to cuff you to the pipe. Got that?" said Rick, maybe a little louder than the situation had called for, but it worked just as they had hoped. The man turned his head to take a nervous look and left the restroom in a hurry.

"I don't believe this," said A.J. as Rick removed the handcuffs from his wrists.

"What're ya talkin' about?"

"That guy left the bathroom without washing his hands."

"Oh, for… Let him suffer the consequences of bad personal hygiene! Now, get in here and make yourself more presentable before anyone else comes in!"

Rick shoved his brother into one of the stalls. A.J. removed the gold chains and took off the jacket and the shirt. Underneath the removed garments was a crisp dress shirt unbuttoned to the navel.

"Hey, Rick?"

"Yeah?"

"I need your sunglasses. Mine are shot."

A hand came out of the stall palm up demanding Rick's shades.

A.J. looked pretty decent when he stepped out of the stall except for his hair—he still looked like he had just gotten off a wild roller coaster ride. Rick handed him a comb, and a few minutes later, the two brothers left the federal building unnoticed.


	8. Chapter 8

Rick made two calls from a pay phone some blocks away from the federal building. The first one was to his pal at DMV to request information on Arne DeGroot. The second was to Carlos to check on the messages.

"Well?" A.J. asked Rick expectantly when he returned to the station wagon from the phone booth.

"Janet has done her homework and will drop it off at Myron's after work. And I got DeGroot's address." Rick rattled off a street address. "So, what's it going to be? Pick your poison."

"If I were to choose between the two agents, I'd bet my money on DeGroot."

"Because he bugged our office?"

"Like I said before, it couldn't have been done legally."

"Come on, A.J. Don't be so naïve. Even if you're right, this is not the first or last illegal wiretapping by the government."

"Still, I want to keep a close eye on him."

"Or, we can get another car from Carlos and split up."

"There's no way that I'm going to let you out of my sight till this is all over!" A.J. shot down Rick's idea.

Rick grimaced—having his little brother clinging to him had always frustrated him to say the least since they had been kids, but after the previous night's escapade, he knew it was unavoidable.

"What do you wanna do then? It's almost five, DeGroot is out and may not come back to the office this evening."

"Let's keep an eye on the comings and goings at the FBI office until, say, six. If he doesn't come back, we can go pick up the files on the import dealer. We've been checking out only one side so far—the Feds. It's about time we looked into the other side's background. After all, it was its muscles who dropped by looking for you last night."

Rick made a face and groaned. Surveillance was one thing; going over some business paperwork and crunching numbers was a totally different aspect of investigative work.

Six o'clock came and went. Neither De Luca nor DeGroot showed up at the office, so the Simon brothers drove back to Myron Fowler's home to pick up the background information on Trans-Global Trading. They found a fat folder sitting on the kitchen table. A.J. wanted to dig in right away and pulled one of the chairs out to sit down, but Rick stopped him.

"Hey, I have a better idea. We can read all we want on our way to DeGroot's home and during the surveillance."

"Oh, okay." A.J. seemed to go along with Rick's ruse but not for long. "And I assume you do the driving and keeping an eye on the place while I do the reading?"

Having been seen through, Rick laughed off his brother's needling. "You got it. I believe in division of labor—you take care of the paperwork and finances…"

"And you generate trouble and headaches for me. Fair enough."

Despite his acerbic remark, A.J. didn't mind performing the task delegated to him. He kept his nose buried in the file as Rick drove the station wagon to Mission Hills, where DeGroot lived. Pretty soon, he began uttering ohs and uh-huhs and mumbling to himself.

"Find anything interesting?" asked Rick.

"Nothing concrete yet, but there's definitely something fishy in the corporate structure of Trans-Global. Here, take a look."

A.J. showed Rick a diagram of various companies Janet had put together.

"They're all connected?"

"Uh-huh," A.J. nodded. "And some are dummy corporations. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more affiliates that Janet didn't list here."

"I bet someone's cooking books. And money laundering's not too big a leap, is it?"

"Money laundering is certainly in the picture, but I need more detailed financial records to see if Trans-Global is funneling the funds to the others or on the receiving end."

As they discussed how and when to obtain such financial data, the brothers arrived at DeGroot's address. The house was brightly lit, and they could see DeGroot's silhouette moving about on the window of what they believed was the living room. He seemed to be speaking on the phone. Seven, maybe eight minutes passed.

"It's a lengthy call, isn't it?" said A.J. keeping an eye on the house through a pair of binoculars.

"I hope it'll lead us somewhere. I hate spending a whole night sitting in a car with no action." Rick grumbled.

"Especially on the eve of Valentine's Day, huh?" A.J. teased his brother.

"Gee, thanks for reminding me!"

A.J. lowered the binoculars and gave Rick a cloyingly sweet smile. "You're so very welcome."

Rick showed him his fist as he had often done in their boyhood to shut him up, but then he noticed DeGroot was no longer in the living room.

"A.J.!"

A.J. turned his head following his brother's gaze. "Oh, no! Where'd he go? Did he leave the house?"

"I don't think so. Maybe he's watching TV or went to the bedroom to get a change of clothes or something."

The brothers spent several uneasy minutes looking for any sign of DeGroot. Suddenly, the living room lights went out, and a few moments later, the FBI agent stepped out of the front door. He was still wearing a suit and tie but not the cheap kind he'd had on before—even in the poor lighting, Rick and A.J. could tell he hadn't bought it off-the-rack. He was also carrying an attaché case. He got in his jeep on the driveway and backed into the street.

It was Friday night, and the traffic was heavier than usual, which meant the odds of DeGroot noticing the tail were slim; however, Rick had to concentrate not to lose the sight of the jeep in the sea of automobiles. A.J. remained quiet not to break his brother's concentration. It seemed they were heading downtown.

_**S&S S&S**_

The jeep Rick and A.J. had been following slowed down in front of a five-star hotel. Although the valet service was readily available, DeGroot chose street parking and fed the parking meter. Rick slowly passed the jeep as the FBI agent crossed the street to enter the hotel with the attaché case in his hand.

Rick parked the Volvo three spaces ahead of the jeep, but before it completely stopped, A.J. was out of the vehicle, hastily putting on a jacket, a fedora and sunglasses. It wasn't much of disguise, and he hoped DeGroot wouldn't pay much attention to him because if he did, he would surely recognize him.

As he walked into the hotel lobby, A.J. saw the Fed go into the lounge bar. He deliberately slowed his pace to give DeGroot enough time to settle in his seat.

The bar was unexpectedly crowded with well-dressed men and women—some were business folks, some others were socialites. DeGroot was sitting at the counter. He had placed his attaché case on the seat to his left. It was apparent that he was expecting to see someone and reserving a seat for him. A.J. found a table that was close enough to observe DeGroot. He pulled down the brim of the fedora over his face as he walked past the bar stool the Fed was sitting on and sat down about fifteen feet away from him.

A short while later, a pretty cocktail waitress came up to his table. About the same time, a man carrying a briefcase approached the bar counter and spoke briefly to DeGroot.

"Hi, Hon. What can I getcha?" The waitress asked A.J. with a toothy smile.

At the counter, the Fed moved his attaché case from the seat to the floor. The man with thinning red hair, who had just arrived, sat next to him and set his briefcase by the attaché case.

"Coke." A.J. replied curtly to the waitress preoccupied by the two men at the counter.

"Coke? Wait a minute. Are you sure you're old enough to be in the bar, Sweetie?" She giggled flirtatiously.

Under normal circumstances, A.J. enjoyed flirting with attractive young women as much as the next guy, but this was not the right time or place. He had to send her packing fast without making a scene.

"_Wie bitte? Was haben Sie gesagt? Ich spreche kein Englisch._"

An inviting smile on her lips was gone in the blink of an eye, disappointment written all over her face. "Umm. So, do you want a Coke?" She spoke slowly as if she were speaking to a small child.

"_Ja, ja_. Coke, _bitte_."

Her dark eyes lingered on him for a second or two then she left the table without another word.

DeGroot and the Redhead never exchanged words after the initial encounter and sipped their drinks quietly like a couple of strangers unwinding after work. The FBI agent finished his drink first. He tossed a few bills on the counter, reached down and picked up the briefcase the other man had brought.

A.J. had only a moment to make up his mind while DeGroot was preparing to leave the bar, and he decided to stick with the Redhead. He had to wait for what felt like an hour, but in reality, only four or five minutes had elapsed between DeGroot's departure and the Redhead's. When the Redhead walked into the lobby with the Fed's attaché case, A.J. slapped a five on the table and left the bar in a hurry.

Rick paced alongside the station wagon. DeGroot had driven off a couple of minutes ago, but there still was no sign of A.J. As the time went by, uneasiness he'd felt at first turned into anxiety inching toward full-blown alarm although he had unshakable faith in his brother as an investigator. He was seriously considering going into the hotel lobby when he finally spotted A.J. coming out of the hotel. As he started to cross the street, A.J. took a furtive look at a man who was getting into a Cadillac Coupe de Ville. His eyes met Rick's, and he signaled his brother to get in the car with a wave of his arm.

A.J. jumped into the passenger seat. "Go, go, go!"

"The Caddy?" asked Rick tersely pulling out of the parking space. A.J. nodded.

"What happened in there?"

"The guy in the Caddy and DeGroot swapped their briefcases."

"So, DeGroot IS the link to the mob after all."

At this point, whether DeGroot was engaged in espionage or operating as an undercover agent was immaterial in their investigation. The government could make your life miserable but generally did not pose an imminent threat; the mob did.


	9. Chapter 9

Rick and A.J. didn't have to drive too far this time. Once they were on their way, they had a hunch where they were heading. Sure enough, the Caddy soon made a turn and got onto Park. It slowed down as it entered the 200 Block, and the turn signal came on.

Rick drove past Trans-Global Trading and parked the Volvo about a block ahead.

"So, here we are," announced Rick trying to sound as casually as possible. His brother's meltdown last night was still fresh in his memory.

A.J. took a nervous backward glance at the commercial building in which Trans-Global was located. Rick was already in the back of the car putting on dark clothes.

"I don't know about this, Rick," A.J. said hesitantly. "Maybe I should go in by myself this time…"

"Now, wait just a minute. Didn't you tell me not too long ago that you'd never let me out of your sight till this case was over?" Rick reminded his brother in a neutral, non-confrontational tone.

"Well, yeah…" A.J. admitted reluctantly.

"And this is not like going into a posh bar—you need someone to cover your back."

"Yeah, I know."

"Besides you don't know the best way to sneak into the building." Rick cracked a smile.

"But you do?" A.J. bristled, "What else have you been holding back from me about your little outing last night?"

"I didn't lie to you, A.J. I stayed away from this place, but you didn't say anything against someone else casing the joint." Rick grinned as he tossed a dark outfit to his brother.

_**S&S S&S**_

Trans-Global occupied one of the business spaces in a large building, which offered office areas on the front end, warehouse or loading facilities at the back. One of the offices adjacent to Trans-Global was unoccupied and had minimal security measures. Once they were in the vacant office, Rick and A.J. removed one of the ceiling panels and got into the space between the ceiling and the roof. There were pipes and ducts snaking throughout the length of the building in the dusty attic space, but the brothers could move from one end to the other with relative ease.

They didn't have to go too far to position themselves right above the office of Trans-Global. Rick lifted a ceiling panel only a few inches and got a compact out of his pant pocket.

"Is that Trixie's, or yours?" A.J. giggled softly holding a penlight for his brother.

"Shut up, A.J." Rick gave his brother an annoyed look and lowered the open compact through the crack. He studied the reflection on the compact mirror briefly.

"It's an open office space with partitions, a private office and a door at the back. The door probably leads to the warehouse. And I think there's a john in a corner."

"See anyone?"

Rick shook his head. "No. They must be in the private office, or the warehouse."

"Where's the private office?"

"Over there."

A.J. checked the spot Rick was pointing and lifted a ceiling panel. "No one here either."

Rick whistled and gestured toward one end of the attic space that faced the warehouse. It was hard to see in the dark, but there was a small window covered with dust.

"Must be the access window for the maintenance workers," said Rick.

It took him a few minutes, and elbow grease, to open such a small window. It obviously hadn't been used for quite some time. When it finally went up protesting with a creak, the opening it left was remarkably small.

"What is this? A pet door?" Rick complained.

"This building must be pretty old. The size of the window stayed the same—it's just that the Americans got bigger," rationalized A.J.

Rick used the compact again to make sure the coast was clear and started wiggling out of the attic space and cussing under his breath.

The warehouse was much more spacious than the office area. Rick was standing on a catwalk with a handrail, and the ceiling was about fifteen, twenty feet above. There was a metal ladder attached to the wall. It led to a maze of catwalks for the maintenance purposes just below the ceiling. The ledge he was standing on wrapped around the perimeter of the warehouse and had a couple of sets of stairs for easy access from the floor.

Rick looked around and whispered into the window, "Okay, A.J."

There was no answer. "A.J.?"

A moment or two passed, and his brother finally whispered back, "Be careful, Rick."

"What? What are you doing? Get your…" Rick broke off. Someone was coming up the stairs. "No! Don't come out—stay there!"

He'd have to get off the catwalk and find a place to hide because he was in an exposed, vulnerable area of the warehouse. Reluctantly, he left his brother behind, went around the bend and hopped onto the top of one of the industrial-size shelves that stood on both sides of the warehouse.

Rick was almost out the window when A.J. heard a flush of a toilet. He moved toward the sound of the water and quietly raised a ceiling panel just a crack. A man with slicked-back hair came out of the restroom and was met by the Redhead, who was still carrying the attaché case he'd received from DeGroot. They exchanged a few words then walked into the warehouse through the door at the back of the office, and that was when his brother called his name. "A.J.?"

He wanted to warn his brother about the two men but assumed he'd hear them coming, and he was right— Rick told him not to come out. His pulse picked up when he heard his brother going to the left and someone else coming up from the right. He retreated to the deep recesses of darkness and lay flat on this stomach. The footsteps stopped right by the window. After several agonizingly long seconds, the unknown individual walked away to the left, stopped and retraced his way back.

A.J. was becoming anxious. Rick was out there all by himself with no one to protect him. A.J. had to catch up with him but didn't know if it was safe to go into the warehouse by the same route he'd taken. And because someone had noticed that the access window was open, it wasn't safe to stay in the attic space either. Without much hesitation, he started his descent to the private office.

He landed on a large executive desk and quickly got down on the floor. Maybe there were other ways to get inside the warehouse, he hoped. As he walked over to the door and tried to turn the doorknob, there was the sound of the backdoor opening, which was followed by several voices and footsteps.

He immediately locked the door, scrambled up on the desk and jumped to get a purchase of the ceiling panels. Someone was at the door trying to open it. He frantically pulled himself up and was halfway back in the attic space. When he thought he'd make it, he heard the office door burst open. A huge hand grabbed his ankle and yanked it so hard he went crashing down and landed on the desk sending trays and documents every which way. The same hand that had brought him down clamped around his neck, and he was pinned down on the desk.

"You!" An angry voice exclaimed.

A.J.'s eyes locked with those of the Muscle. In the corner of his eye, he saw a few more people streaming into the office.

"Who is that?" Someone in the crowd asked.

"One of the Simons," replied the Muscle.

"Is he the one we want?"

"No. The other one." This voice undoubtedly belonged to the Bass, the Muscle's partner.

The Bass pushed the Muscle aside and lifted A.J. off the desk. He confiscated A.J.'s .357 from his holster.

The Redhead and the Slick were standing by the goons.

"What are you doing here?" asked the Redhead.

A.J. shrugged. "I saw a couple of familiar faces," he gestured toward the Bass and the Muscle, "and followed them here. I just wanted to know who I'm dealing with."

"You're way out of your league, Simon," said the Slick coldly. "Where's your brother?"

"In Mexico. That's all I know."

A short, skinny man walked into the office. "There's no one else here."

The mobsters had not been done with the sweep: the Bass and the Muscle went outside to look for Rick or any other security breach; The Shorty climbed into the attic space; and the Redhead and the Slick led A.J. to the warehouse.

"Where's your brother hiding? Is he here?" asked the Redhead

"He's somewhere in Mexico, I told you. I came here alone." A.J. stubbornly stuck to his story.

The Redhead's eyes hardened, and he shoved A.J. against the wall. "You're a terrible liar, Simon. We know he's back in town."

A.J. clammed up and stared back at the Redhead defiantly.

"All right, have it your way," the Redhead gave A.J. a thin, cruel smile. "There are so many different ways to make you talk, and I can assure you, none of them is pleasant."

His malevolent grin became wider. "For instance, I can blow out your kneecaps one at a time and work my way up. And don't worry—you're not going to pass out or bleed to death. We have a medical doctor on our team."

All the talk of blood and gore made A.J.'s stomach churn, especially when it concerned his own blood and gore. Unlike Rick, he had never been good at bluffing and hoped he didn't show how terrified he was.

"HEY, OVER HERE!"

Rick's booming voice bounced around in the cavernous warehouse making everyone's head turn. He was standing at the other end of the floor. Half of his body was obscured by rows and rows of shelves, but they could clearly see he was holding a lighter in one hand. A tiny flame from the lighter flickered just below a small rectangular object that seemed to be a cigarette pack.

The Redhead kept his gun trained on A.J. as the Slick aimed at Rick.

"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" A.J. screamed trying to lunge at the Slick, but the Redhead slammed him back on the wall.

"Let my brother go, or you'll never get what you want," shouted Rick.

"Why should we? I can get a clean shot from here." The Slick yelled back.

"Maybe so. But I bet you can't get here fast enough before this pack goes up in flames."

It was a game of chicken of sorts, and neither side flinched. A few tense, deathly quiet moments crawled by. Then A.J. heard soft footsteps above and saw a man on the top of the stairs aiming a rifle at his brother.

"Rick! Look out!"

Rick jumped sideway and ducked behind the shelves as several shots rang out.

Everything happened so fast it was a blur. When the echoes of the shots died down, A.J. was face down on the floor with someone's knee digging in the back. A pair of black shoes came into the field of his vision.

"It's all right. Let him go." A.J. heard someone speak.

Two men, faces unseen, took hold of A.J.'s upper arms from each side and pulled him up from the floor. As he got back on his feet, he came face-to-face with a man wearing an FBI windbreaker. The warehouse was teeming with the SWAT snipers in full riot gear. The man who'd had a rifle and the Slick lay unmoving and appeared dead, and the Redhead was prone on the floor handcuffed.

"Are you all right, Mr. Simon?" The man in an FBI jacket asked, but A.J. hardly heard him.

"Rick…" A.J. frantically tried to find his brother, but he was nowhere in sight.

"Ri-i-i-ck!" A.J. broke into a run. He ran past three, four snipers sweeping the warehouse row by row.

He found Rick's crumpled figure between the last two rows of shelves. He was lying on his side, eyes closed. A.J. froze at the sight of his worst nightmare.

"Rick…" He called his brother's name hoarsely and knelt beside him.

He turned Rick on his back to check on the injury but found none. Suddenly, Rick's eyes popped open.

"I can't believe this," said Rick staring into his brother's eyes.

A.J. was too stunned to speak.

"After all these years, you still fall for it." Rick grinned a 'fooled-ya!' grin.

"You…!" A.J. managed to say, but the rest of the speech got stuck in his throat.

"Is that your way to thank the man who just saved your hide?"

A.J. was getting infuriated. He grasped the lapels of Rick's jacket and pulled him up in a sitting position, fully intending to punch him in the face, but when Rick grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled him to his chest, the familiar scent of his brother—cigarette, cheap cologne, sweat—enveloped him, and a tremendous relief washed over him. Somehow the brothers ended up embracing each other.

"Are you two all right?"

Rick and A.J. looked up at the FBI agent in a windbreaker, who seemed to be the commanding officer of this operation.

"What took you so long?" Rick muttered under his breath.

As the two brothers got on their feet, the FBI agent offered his hand. "I'm Agent Michael Nickerson, FBI."

"I assume you know who we are," said A.J.

Nickerson nodded.

"And you want the code we found in the Ford pickup, I presume." A.J. pointed at the cigarette pack on the floor.

This time, Nickerson shook his head. "No, we've already got what we wanted."

"We don't have the message on us anyway if you want it," interjected Rick.

"What?" A.J. seemed puzzled.

"You're slipping, A.J." Rick clucked his tongue as he bent over to pick up the pack.

Even more puzzled, A.J. stared at Rick.

"Did you seriously believe I came here bearing gifts? This smoke is mine. Stop being so gullible."

Rick wadded the pack into a tiny ball and threw it at his very confused brother.

He started to snicker but stopped abruptly when he heard someone's footsteps approaching.

"Nickerson, is this place secured?"

A.J. didn't have to see who it was because the deep, resonating voice was unmistakable.

"Aaagh!" An involuntary scream escaped from his lips when the Bass appeared before them. Instinctively, his hand went to his side for his gun though the holster was empty.

"Relax, Mr. Simon. He's on our side," said Nickerson gripping A.J.'s arm firmly.

"How can he be on our side? He's one of the guys who ransacked my home!"

"Mr. Simon, he is a DEA undercover agent on a joint task force working with our bureau."

A.J. was momentarily rendered speechless, and Rick was nakedly gawking at the hulking figure of the DEA agent.

"Gentlemen, this is Agent Brett Daniels."

"It's regrettable that we couldn't meet under more pleasant circumstance, Mr. Simon" Daniels rumbled to A.J. "But I was there to protect you and your brother in case such action was required. We don't want any civilian casualty."

"To p…" sputtered A.J. "That's a funny way to put it, isn't it? You knocked me out cold!"

"You had only two choices—me or Riser, the man I was with."

"Riser? As in…?" asked Rick.

"Meat Tenderizer."

Rick raised his eyebrows as his lips formed an 'o.' He put his arm around his brother's shoulders and spoke in a tone one might use for admonishing a bratty child. "You know, you should be more grateful, A.J."

A.J. shot a venomous glare at Rick.

"Agent Daniels knew exactly what he was doing," Nickerson assured him. "He has a black belt in karate, in addition to a PhD in Behavioral Psychology and a law degree."

So, this Daniels character was an overachieving, legal-eagle, karate-chopping psychologist, but knowing that didn't make A.J. feel any better—a punch was a punch, no matter who threw it.

"Don't you think you owe us an explanation at least?" A.J. sounded exasperated.

"We're more than happy to tell you as much as we're allowed to divulge without jeopardizing the ongoing investigations."

_Which means diddly-squat in layman's term_, thought Rick. He saw in his mind's eye hundreds of pages of some document, which was heavily censored with words, sentences and paragraphs blackened out. But A.J. was more trusting than he, and naturally his response was, "I'll take it."


	10. Chapter 10

"Would you like coffee or anything?" asked Nickerson once again.

Rick and A.J. shook their heads—they didn't intend to stay long in this depressingly austere room. Nickerson was willing to release some of the 'privileged' information only in a secure location, which meant one of the interrogation rooms at the bureau.

Nickerson sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup contemplating where and how to begin.

"We have been working on a human trafficking case for some years. About a year or two into the investigation, we started losing some of our best undercover agents. Two were killed execution style, another one was injured so severely, he's permanently handicapped and has since retired. One other was injured but survived with no permanent damage by sheer luck.

"At first, it was a nagging suspicion, but we eventually came to a conclusion that someone in our office was leaking the classified information to the smugglers, but finding the culprit and rock-solid evidence to back it up was tough and slow going. Fighting a crime syndicate is tough enough, and our team is severely shorthanded after losing so many agents.

"Then, as luck would have it, the role of coordinating Joint Task Force with DEA fell into my lap. It turned out that the kingpin behind the DEA's drug smuggling investigation has connection to our human trafficking case and, quite possibly, is one and the same as our guy."

"Ah! Diversification. My brother always tells me not to put all the eggs in one basket when it comes to investment. Isn't that right, A.J.?" Rick's wisecracking was promptly shushed by A.J.

Nickerson shrugged off Rick's remark and continued. "I had to be frank and tell my counterpart in the DEA about the problem we'd had in our bureau. We had a long discussion and came up with an idea to sniff out the informant."

"Wait a minute. Are you trying to tell us this secret message business was just a trick to flush him out?" asked A.J. bewildered.

"Yes. We got this idea while going over the financial data we'd subpoenaed from various banks to investigate the money-laundering scheme. We couldn't rule out six agents on our team as a suspect, and I led them to believe there was another undercover agent from our bureau gathering information within the crime syndicate although the bureau had suspended the undercover work temporarily. In the FBI, only my immediate superior and I knew the true identity of Agent Daniels. We picked three vehicles scheduled for repossession and delivery to three different financial institutions on the same date…"

"And you divvied up the six guys into three pairs and sent them out on separate errands." Rick was getting the picture.

Nickerson nodded. "We planted three totally different messages in the cars up for a repo and told each pair the same story—the message from our undercover was in a certain vehicle, but there was a glitch, and the code for the next rendezvous with the undercover agent must be retrieved at the bank. Of course, we didn't have our own undercover agent, but Agent Daniels had been embedded deep within the syndicate, so if there had been a leak, he would have heard it. We were confident that the leaked information would have revealed which pair had delivered it to the mob. We eventually could have figured out which one of the two was the guilty one."

"But my brother inadvertently intercepted the message from the pickup…" said A.J.

Nickerson shrugged. "Actually, you two did us a favor—you accelerated the whole process. We didn't have to wait for as long as we'd initially planned to solve our problem. As soon as we heard from Agent Daniels that the syndicate had received a call that the message had been taken from the Ford pickup, we knew which team had to be responsible."

"You used us." Rick sounded resentful.

"We had no control over your action, Mr. Simon. And we assigned a surveillance team on you and your brother right away to ensure your safety. We also got the warrant for wiretapping at your home to determine whether you were associated in any way with the traffickers and your whereabouts, but somehow, you eluded our team… I assume that pizza parlor you mentioned over the phone was a code."

"More like a family joke," said A.J. with a tiny smile.

"But we can't divulge the information," said Rick flippantly.

"We just hoped that you'd be able to decipher the message—it wasn't too difficult a code after all."

The look on the Simon brothers' faces prompted Nickerson to say, "You did a fine job considering that you're not code breakers. I'm glad that you were able to crack the code because that's exactly what we wanted from you. We speculated once you figured out the rendezvous message, you would eventually show up at Trans-Global. It was only the matter of time. So, we posted our men around the building waiting. Agent Daniels led us into the warehouse in the nick of time, and you know the rest."

"So, is it over?" asked A.J.

"As for our internal investigation, yes. We have taken Agent DeGroot into custody as well as several felons working for the smuggling operations. The drug and human trafficking cases are still active."

"I sure hope we won't have to help you guys in those cases too," grumbled Rick.

"You have my word, Mr. Simon."

Nickerson's serious expression finally dissolved into a grin.

_**S&S S&S **_

When Rick and A.J. emerged from the interrogation room, it was already two in the morning, Saturday. Waiting for a ride back to their set of wheels, they slouched on the bench in the reception area. In the cold hue of the fluorescent lights, they looked haggard and pale.

"Man, I can't wait to get my power wagon back," said Rick tiredly. "Maybe I can patch things up with Trixie and go on a trip after all."

"We just got over a major crisis, and all you think about is getting your truck and girlfriend back?"

"Why not? Life's short. Why dwell on the negatives?"

"Because one can learn a lot from his mistakes, that's why. It's especially true in your case. After what we have gone through, I hope you've learned your lesson, Rick." A.J. sounded like a father lecturing his unruly son.

"I most certainly have," Rick replied earnestly.

"You have?" A.J. couldn't believe his ears.

"Yup. From now on, I'll stick to cigars." Rick deadpanned.


	11. Chapter 11

Janet was in a hurry to retrieve the U.S. Constitution textbook she had left on her desk at Peerless Detectives when she saw Rick's power wagon parked in front of the office of Simon & Simon Investigations. It had not been there Friday afternoon. Her heart rate quickened with trepidation. When she knocked on the door, to her relief, she heard Rick say, "Come on in."

He was sitting at his desk, feet up, watching TV.

"Rick? What are you doing here? And where's…?" Then Janet saw A.J. supine on the couch. Her heart lurched in the chest. "Oh, no! Is A.J. hurt?"

"No. Medicated."

"What? Is he drugged?"

"Self-medicated. It was probably something he ate for breakfast, but he got a rash and took antihistamine. Right now, he's out cold. Other than that, he's fine, or will be in an hour or so. Happens all the time. He's…we're used to it."

Janet exhaled a sigh of relief.

"So, is it over?"

"Yup. All over."

"Aren't you going to tell me what happened?"

"How much time can you spare?"

"Never mind that. Just tell me everything, and spare no details." Janet demanded sitting down on one of the guest chairs.

_**S&S S&S**_

"And that's all there is to it."

When Rick finally finished talking, Janet was spellbound and unable to speak for a moment or two.

"You two are lucky to be able to come out of all that unscathed." She said breaking the silence. "Well, at least, one of you did."

He acknowledged her comment with a nod while absentmindedly scratching a scar just above his left cheekbone. It looked discolored against the tanned cheek.

"Does that thing bother you?"

"Huh?"

"You know, the scar."

"The… Oh. Oh, no. I hardly remember it's there most of the time 'cause I've had it so long."

"If you don't mind my asking…"

"How did I get this scar?"

Janet nodded. "An injury during the war, one would imagine."

Rick grinned a wolfish grin. "Oh, I've got some other scars from the two tours in Nam, but I got this one when me and A.J. were still kids. I bet he doesn't even remember 'cause he was just a little tyke barely out of diapers back then."

"You ran into a broken tree branch. You lose."

Rick and Janet turned their heads and saw A.J. still lying on the couch where Rick had left him, but his eyes were open.

"Hey, you're awake." After a brief pause, Rick said with a touch of disbelief, "You remember that?"

"Sure I do." A.J. slowly sat up on the couch. He still had some red splotches, in addition to the black eye, on his face. "You got ten stitches for it."

"Twelve."

Janet looked at A.J., Rick, and back at A.J. Frowning, she asked, "Am I missing something? Like how this accident happened? How did Rick end up running into a broken branch?"

The brothers exchanged a telegraphic look, and A.J. took the first turn.

"All I wanted was getting a close look at the tree house where Rick and Tyler what's-his-name used to spend most of the afternoon after school. They built it up high in the tallest oak tree in our backyard so I wouldn't be able to climb up there."

"But obviously not high enough to keep a pesky little brother out. One afternoon, A.J. snuck out of the house when Tyler and I were reading comic books in the kitchen…"

"You were supposed to be watching over me while Mom was at the neighbors'," A.J. whined accusingly.

"I was only ten!" Rick barked back. "Besides, you were not allowed to climb that tree, remember?"

In order to put a stop to yet another squabble between the two brothers before it escalated to a full-blown shouting match, Janet quickly interjected, "Okay, I'm getting the picture now. You got stuck in the tree, and Rick ran to the tree house trying to rescue you…"

"HA! He didn't make even halfway to the tree house—he just tripped and fell face first and said 'hello' to a broken branch on the ground."

"Hey, I really did try to save your undeserving ass! You lost your footing, dangling from the tree house platform and squealing like a stuck pig!"

"Okay, the intent was there, I give you that much, but I would never have lost my balance if you hadn't yelled and startled me in the first place. And, as I recall, I fell out of the tree anyway!"

"Oh, you poor thing!"

Rick was getting ticked off as Janet cast a sympathetic glance in A.J.'s direction sounding like a young mother consoling a tot with a little boo-boo.

"Hey, wait a minute! I got stitches. All he got was scrapes and bruises, but he was the one who was crying and screaming his head off."

"Your face was all bloody. You scared the hell out of me because I thought you'd lost an eye!" A.J. raised his voice to match Rick's.

Janet could not help wondering how a simple, innocent question about the scar could lead to a raucous argument like this. "Hey, you two! Don't you think this is kind of silly…?"

"I was really traumatized by the whole thing!" A.J. yelled at Rick completely ignoring Janet.

"A.J…."

"YOU…were traumatized? What about me? Huh?"

"Rick!"

"You got hurt physically, but I had a recurring nightmare for weeks!"

Janet threw her hands up in the air and headed for the door. She knew it was futile to reason with them when these two brothers were at each other like this. Breaking up the Simon brothers' fight was a lot tougher than getting into a law school, she lamented. In any case, Rick and A.J. seemed relatively intact after completing the nightmarish case. By the time she closed the office door behind her, their argument had spiraled down to "No, I did not!" "Oh, you sure did!" "Did not!" "Did too!"

A slam of the door startled Rick and A.J., silencing them for a moment.

"Janet… Why'd she leave?" A.J. wondered aloud.

"You and your whining drove her out," opined Rick.

A.J. glared at Rick and started to say, "My…" then stopped. The momentum was gone, and he was running out of steam. With a shrug, he conceded, "I guess we both did. I know we can be pretty obnoxious when we are bickering."

"That's what Mom says," agreed Rick, who seemed to be trying very hard to suppress a grin.

"So, you had a real scare over this, huh?" Rick pointed at his scar.

"THAT would be the understatement of the decade," said A.J. letting out a short, shrill laugh.

Getting caught up in the childhood memories, Rick rubbed his chin reflectively.

"You know, when you think about it, we got off easy when you fell from the tree house and I got banged up."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't keep an eye on you like Mom told me to, but because I got hurt and looked worse than I actually felt, Mom and Dad felt sorry for me and didn't ground me. All I got was a stern lecture."

A.J. cocked his head and thought back on it.

"And they let me sleep with them for a week or so because I kept waking up in the middle of the night screaming despite the fact that I broke their rules."

The two brothers looked at each other, and a conspiratorial grin slowly emerged on their faces.

Rick rose to his feet and slung his jacket over his shoulder.

"Hey, you want a beer?"

"I thought you were going to Ensenada."

"Tijuana."

"Whatever."

"It's still early, and I feel like celebrating. It's Valentine's Day after all."

"May I remind you that we didn't get paid for this case?"

A.J.'s protest was half-hearted, and he too got out of his chair.

"Oh, come on! Don't spoil the fun. Besides, I'm buyin'."

In mock amazement, A.J. gasped and clutched his chest. "Be still my heart!" Then he quickly added, "You do have your wallet with you, don't you?"

Rick laughed and gave A.J. a slap on the back.

As the Simon brothers stepped out of their office together, a passerby saw them coming out of the building and thought nothing of it. To him, they appeared to be just a couple of ordinary Joes trying to salvage and enjoy what was left of the weekend.


End file.
